


Reaching for a Nonexistent Heaven (good thing one exists right here)

by cereal_whore



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Bakugou Katsuki-centric, Character Development bc on god i would've terminated both canon deku and baku otherwise., Ethical Dilemmas, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Midoriya Izuku-centric, Todoroki Enji | Endeavor's Bad Parenting, aizawa is a centaur and he's done with you horsing around, and since im 'E for Everyone': i write them equally infuriating so everyone's equally dissatisfied, bakugou: growing up with japanese mythology: what the fuck is a medusa, deku: son of poseidon: afraid of water bc bakugou tried to drown him in a ymca when they were 5, i have an influx of ppl who hate either baku or deku but love the other, kirishima sleeps with his eyes open and Bakugou Is Not Okay, like 2/5 of the gang can speak english and then there's mina who's straight up talking to animals, mina fears No God., mitsuki has questionable parenting but she'll throw hands for katsuki- even at kAtsuki himself, neurodivergent characters, todoroki and baku's friendship embodies the OG 'enemies to lovers' tag, todoroki gets sentimentally attached to a cowboy hat., watch midoriya verbally fLOG Bakugou's ass [NOT CLICKBAIT]
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-01-25 07:17:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 91,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21352369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal_whore/pseuds/cereal_whore
Summary: Bakugou stares.Aizawa stares back."You're half horse."At this, the emo My Little Pony cosplayer's ear flicks, as if he's irritated. "And you're a whole idiot. What's your point?"OR: I center every PJ book around Bakugou, with Midoriya forced to tag along because he doesn't have a ride home. Carpooling alongside the roadtrip around the foreign country America, are under-qualified babysitters Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and Kirishima.Along the way, they accidentally befriend more kids reeking of daddy-issues who have a capable resolve against Bakugou'sbullshit attitude, because nothing like the pressure of life-threatening, saving-the-world-and-bakugou's-mom scenarios thatreallycreates bonds.(you DEF don't have to read PJO to get the gist of this)
Relationships: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Bakugou Katsuki, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Midoriya Izuku, Ashido Mina & Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Katsuki & Class 1-A, Bakugou Katsuki & Kirishima Eijirou, Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki & Todoroki Shouto, Bakugou Katsuki & Yaoyorozu Momo, Bakugou Katsuki/Being Hated By Literally Every Deity Existing, Class 1-A & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Todoroki Shouto, Todoroki Shouto & Yaoyorozu Momo
Comments: 177
Kudos: 293
Collections: Bakugou Katsuki Has Friends, I'll come back for third and fourths no shame





	1. guys i haven't done my english hw oh my god guys im dying why did iw rite this guys f

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't think this through i haven't even read percy jackson in like years
> 
> why did i make this i'm so numb to any emotion from this fic it offers noting
> 
> i literally wrote this bc i was super nostalgic for percy jackson like deadass im like- like yo i didn't even read the books in ORDER yet that shit smacked
> 
> :0 if yall have any ideas you'd like to see in the fic, i'd love to see them! i might follow the basic layout of the lightning thief, except im like lazy and my creative liberty is just me fucking shit up so like we're all here for a fun time whOO
> 
> also my sentences don't like. they're not even sentences it's just me using a '-' after like five complete sentences LMAO r e e e

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on god, everything instagram's telling me about bakugou and midoriya makes me want to fight both of them, but then wikipedia reassures me that they both have main character syndrome so it's fine.

“Hm. Yeah, okay.” And Bakugou pretends as if there isn’t a giant glob of sentient jello trying to absorb his car.

“Kacchan, there’s a giant slime monster eating your car right now.”

And Bakugou Katsuki turns around to face his _dumb _apartment neighbour, and without hesitation, socks him in the face.

* * *

“Are we getting an explanation?” Bakugou cannot believe when he was five seconds away from grinding Deku's dumbass face into their parking lot like the head of a stick of chalk, his mom basically gave him brain damage with the bottom of her textbook and shoved both of them into the backseat.

He can't believe he's currently less than an arm's length away from the fucking wimp, either. 

Oh, and there's a _slime creature chasing after them. _

“Uh, yeah, fine, sure. Your dad really isn’t that piece of shit who literally uses the belt for _ everything _ but his over-sized saggy jeans-”

And something sloshes in the recesses of his gut, acerbic and soupy as she mentions Satoshi.

Fucking bastard.

His mom isn’t the type to stand down, or simply allow anyone so toxic and patronizing as him to even enter her life. But Satoshi was apparently a childhood sweetheart. Bakugou doesn't think he's that sweet, or has a heart, _but okay_.

Then again, Bakugou actually does remember a time of his life when he _didn't_ have a printed out photo of Satoshi pasted above his bed to use as a target for his throwing darts, and when he didn't call Satoshi 'Satoshi', but rather dad (really, a dark phase of his life). If anything, the only true chaotic thing he can remember about him back in that period of time when he didn't want to slip laxatives into Satoshi's drinks right before his meetings, was that he had a bad infatuation with olives. Though, now looking back at it, it's a definite signal of evil that Bakugou's pretty sure should've been a red flag towards Satoshi's true nature. His image gradually chipped over the years, slowly revealing what should've never been exposed underneath, its process so subtle yet ending so drastically that Bakugou can see the clear difference despite never feeling it. He hadn't figured out why his mom didn't leave him after his true nature began to corrupt their daily life, until he realised it's because Satoshi turned to her child, who was seven at the time.

(Second-grade Bakugou was cornered near the stove, his eyes rattling out of his sockets at the sight of the raised belt affectionally christened ‘the opioid epidemic’ by his mother. 

The stove he was pressed again had suddenly combusted.

That was when Bakugou learned he has an affinity for property damage, especially if there’s an open flame nearby.)

Then, Bakugou takes a second. “Wait, wait." He squints, as if that would somehow analyse the whirlpool of thoughts spitting water and backwash at his face. "I’m _ adopted _-” And while there's something relatively comforting to know that the unspoken knowledge that he's not related to Satoshi is finally concluded, this is the first time they're properly discussing it, and it's giving him a headache considering everything else that's also happening at once.

“Are you fucking dumb? Do you _ not _ look like me? There’s no way your skin is _ that _ flawless without my genes. Your dad just. Happens to not be Satoshi- _obviously._ I would've never married someone with his temper."

"Okay. But you're dating him?"

"Yeah! Because I literally don't have money if I left him, and back then, he would threaten to put your tiny chubby baby feet in a pan full of oil-"

"Um. Bakugou-san that is rather concerning."

"Haha, I remember that!"

"Guys, that's. That's not funny." And with distant amusement, Bakugou realises Deku now resembles the 'sick' Apple emoji. "Um. Are you guys okay?" He asks, with casual worry.

"I? Shut up?" Bakugou stares, because yeah, what the fuck? At this, Deku, poor little Deku with a massive shiner colouring the hollows of his eyes, looks so _done_, and Bakugou's literally never seen this side of Deku before and it's strange and _exhilarating_ rather than irritating but at the same time, who the fuck does Deku think he is?

"I remember he literally wouldn't give me any money to buy groceries, and we nearly starved that one week-" His mom rambles in the front, and whatever emotion curiosity had stirred the soupy emotions in the lines of his stomach suddenly falters, going flat as he realises _she's still talking about him. _

And Bakugou _can't_ hear another tragedy with his mom again, he doesn't _want_ to and maybe it's selfish. Maybe his mom needs to be acknowledged for once in their pathetic household crunched underneath Satoshi's influence- but he can't. He closes his eyes. 

"-and he may have you know. Threatened to set fire to our bed once more twice-"

"Um? No? No I don't know?" Retorts Deku's _stupid griping voice. _And Deku sounds mildly disturbed, and he _hates_ that.

And Bakugou feels something cramps the pits of his stomach. Must be his lactose intolerance acting up. 

“Uh, Bakugou-san, while I'm so sorry for your situation, please keep your eyes on the road-” And the shiver in Deku's voice stabs Bakugou in all his pressure points, numbing him with something cold, _annoying_ him. 

“Deku I swear to god if you wet yourself I’ll personally-” Bakugou snarls, his eyes snapping open, but something had allowed those shutters to flick. It was the relief that his mom stopped talking. _I'm really not a good person._ Then he pauses, fully able to digest the situation now that his mom stopped bringing up Satoshi. “Wait, why the _fuck_ is he in our car right now and why are we getting chased down by a giant slime what the _fuck_-” because yeah. _Why_ _is_ Deku in his fucking car right now?

"First off, _you punched me in the face earlier_ don't start being pressed about MY presence-" and Bakugou Does Not Like That Tone. He jerks in his tight seatbelt, ready to drink Deku's fucking spinal fluid juice with a straw he'll stab straight through his back, but then his mom intervenes with her own tangent of a thought.

“You were a lot milder when you were in shock and close to fainting.” And his mom sounds mildly disappointed, her hand loosely propped against the wheel, crossed on car seat of their Hondac whose life-span is most certainly shorter than his will to live at this point.

He looks up in a dramatic eye-roll, but something up there catches his eye, keeps his neck slouched back, falling into a coma of silence. 

Entranced by the swirling rivers of neon oil parting the clouds of the sky, there's something evil about it. It's glittering ominously in the rolling hills of abyssal black, accompanying the Asiatic clouds. 

The moon smiles.

He falls silent.

“Wait where the fuck is our car roof?”

_ “Bakugou-san I really need to get home now- _”

“Izuku, don’t worry! Sorry, I know you expected to stay home, but I couldn’t leave you at home in good conscious after your mom asked me to check on you to make sure you’re okay. Your mom knows about my past, anyways!”

“What? Your past as a getaway driver?” Bakugou snarls at the same time stupid Deku said: “you know, I think it’d be better for your good conscious to not take me.”

And he shifts in his seat, _ hating _ that his mom forced him to sit in the back because apparently ‘he lost his frontseat priviledges’ because he accidentally gave her scurvy that one time- 

Only to sit up suddenly at the warmth flooding the seats. It must be the slime.

He stares down.

It’s not the slime.

“Did you urinate yourself?”

At this, Deku appears slightly indignant, even though he literally _ pissed _ onto the seat, and _ oh my god _ Bakugou’s pants must be wet by default as well- he is _ literally _ covered in pee what the FUCK-

“I literally said I had to pee, and then you locked me out of my house, _ then yours _ , even though we haven’t talked in _ years. _ This is literally your fault and I would feel more mortified if you haven’t humiliated me in worse ways in school.” And Bakugou cannot _ believe _ that Deku appears remotely _ annoyed _ because how dare he? And he _ peed _ why the fuck does he have the expression of a food-deprived German Shepard? 

“Listen, Kacchan, trust me when I say _ I _ am currently on the worse end of this urine situation.” And Bakugou shuts up, not even finding it in himself to make fun of Deku because _ really _ , can he? He can definitely kick a boy when he’s down. But when he peed himself? Bakugou feels as if doing so would only give _ himself _ second-hand embarrassment. 

“Oh, Bakugou-san, the slime is now a lot faster than it was before. Accelerate, please!”

And the car jerks forward, and Bakugou goes toppling back into the seat, and he stiffens as the warm pool of liquid seeps into the rest of his clothes. _ He’s going to kill Deku. _ “Deku I-”

“Sit down, before I toss you out. The monster’s after you, anyways maybe I should dispose of you. More trouble than he’s worth.” his mom chides coolly from the front, from where she’s still driving as if she’s on a California road trip with her friends at the prime age of 21, her unused leg crossed jauntily over her others’ thigh. She slips on shades that despite being broken by multiple angry fists from Satoshi in the passenger seat, by getting run over that one time by Bakugou’s dirt bike, and being picked up in the first place off the side of the gutters-

His mom looks so confident with them on.

Like she’s walking away from an explosion that right now defines the buildup of snot chasing them. 

Everything’s going to be okay. His mom cranes her head around, and suddenly, jerks up her sunglasses by the pinch of her fingers, exposing her bright red eyes framed by the bottom of her symbolic shades.

“Also, you have a lot of anger issues and looking like a snack for the monsters because I fucked a god when I was like. Twenty-two.” She then drops her shades back over her eyes, and turns to face the road.

Bakugou takes a second.

“Mom can we not-”

“Yeah, you’re the son of Ares.”

“I’m sorry, but can we _ watch _ the road-”

“Mom I have no idea what the _ hell _ you’re saying but I sure don’t have time for that-”

“You fuckin’ _ brat _ here I am telling you the reason why you’re literally incapable of staying in one school for more than two-point-four months and you’re giving me _ shit _-”

“Oh my god there’s _ literally _ a Minotaur in front of us.”

And Bakugou whips around, ready to suddenly helicoptor his neighbour out the window by his scrawny-ass ankles, because Bakugou doesn’t _ know _ what’s going on, he’s apparently-maybe-adopted, his mom thinks she’s a Harry Potter OC, and he’s going to fucking _ do _ something about all this _ bullshit _ because he doesn’t have _ time _ for this and everything’s dark and _ rocky _ and there’s something easing the positions of his intestines and _ no _ Bakugou does not get overwhelmed-

Then the car slams into a second halt, and he once again goes tumbling off his seat, his descent of thoughts shattered. 

“Huh. Damn.” His mom’s voice, normally sharp and biting sounds fuzzy through the haze of consistent one-note shrieking in the pits of his ears. 

Jarred, he slowly stumbles onto his knees, before hoisting himself up onto his buckling legs, ready to either vomit on his mom or knock out Deku because this somehow has to correlate to his fault-

When he sees the giant polished stone in the shape of Patrick Star’s house right next to his window.

He slowly traces up the smooth surface.

Up above, leers the head of an ox, who suddenly snorts, and Bakugou flinches at the sudden vent of hot air flushing dust into his hair.

He gags.

“Huh, his breath smells like onions-”

“Well, guess we’re gonna die.” His mom sounds rather resigned, and if anything, she’s now digging through her front seat to pull out the latest _ Iron Chef _ magazine.

“Are _ neither _ of you concerned that there’s a bull-man-”

“Minotaur.”

“-shut UP Deku- the size of the Statue of Liberty’s fucking_ foot _ next to our car right now?”

“Maybe it won’t attack?”

“No. He will,” and his mom is now flipping to the Bobby Flay section of her article. “Well. Guess he can’t resist the scent of demigod blood either, even though you probably smell like a pair of crusty Dorito-dusted fingers.” 

He takes a second. “Are you talking about _ me _?”

“No, I’m talking about _ Izuku _over there, smelling like pee.” She then turns to him, looking over her shades, clearly unimpressed. “Yes I’m talking about you, you fuckin-”

And Bakugou only processes a portion of her words, because he’s currently standing in the middle of his fucking banged up car, smelling like stale piss, and his mom is telling him that she gave birth to the baby of some rancid-breath smelling god or whatever.

The only thing that’s something he can’t blow up or vehemently refuse to acknowledge it exists because it _ can’t _, is the giant fucked up furry that’s slouched over his car right now.

Then, he suddenly recalls something. “Wait, where the _ fuck _ did the giant slime monster go? Are we just going to ignore that? Like-”

“We’re near the sea. Slimes in general would melt from water,” his mom informs. “Well, I mean. Sorta wish we were dealing with the slime instead of you know-” she theatrically flings a hand over to the creature frozen next to their car. “_ That _ thing.”

“I mean. It’s been there for like. A good ten seconds and it hasn’t crushed us.” Deku whispers, his voice quivering.

Then, the bull rears. _ Goddamit Deku. _And Bakugou barely has time to crouch as a sudden blow to the side of the car sends his brain rattling and his spinal chord molding to the pattern of the other car door.

Panic flooding his systems, Bakugou scrabbles into a ball, the noises and the unstoppable shake of the car crushing his lungs and ears like a Coca-Cola can. His mind empties itself of its content- as well as his stomach’s.

Lots of the vomit goes up his nose.

The ringing of his ears effectively cottoning any outside noises, including the multiple swear words battling out in the air around him (though, by this point, he’s too used to them to really not unconsciously categorize them as background noise). Deku’s gross-ass sobbing, God’s laughter, and the earthquakes splitting an axe across his skull.

He stops.

The earth should not be playing the macarena.

He whips around, and nearly chokes on remaining bile clogging the drain of his throat, at the sight of a fucking overgrown tumbleweed with horns charging at him.

“MOM-”

“Fuckin’ brat, get the _ hell _ out of the car-”

And Bakugou _ can’t _ , he _ can’t _ and the world is ending with Nevada blue clouds flashing lightning behind his eyelids, and the purple skies are _ angry _ and punishing and Bakugou _ can’t _ why does his mom think otherwise-

(Then the only clear thought in the midst of spiraling entropy and chorus of sympathetic screams surfaces, almost cold in the hell he’s in: _ and what did she say? _That he’s the reason why the monsters are even here in the first place?)

“Kacchan _ I swear your mom is going to kill _ BOTH _ of us if you don’t MOVE _-”

And something snags at the crusty collar of his shirt, and he gags at the mouvement, jerked and tumbling out of a hole.

A hole that should’ve been filled by a car door.

Blearily, his eyelids crinkling at the dusty landscape of Antarctica's summer period glittering amongst Arkansas glass houses, he sees a crumpled wing resembling a crushed dung ball sadly teetering near the side.

Oh.

“Huh. We’re not dead.”

He pretends as if he doesn’t feel his mom’s glowering line of vision and obvious disappointment.

“I mean. We’re definitely going to,” Deku murmurs, almost nervously. 

Just a couple feet away from him, the Minotaur is currently playing kickball with the rest of their car.

Well, it sucked anyways. And it was Satoshi’s.

“He looks happy!”

“Shut up, Deku.”

Then, the car finally goes rumbling down the distant, and the monster stares almost forlornly at it, before rounding to them at menacing speed.

He can’t help but stiffen, a shiver clacking the plates of his spinal chord, when a pair of amber eyes clap with his.

Then, almost gracefully, the Minotaur collapses onto the callouses of his human palms, his animalistic legs poised on its hooves.

“Oh. We’re going to die.”

“Shut _ UP _, Deku.”

But Bakugou, despite everything and not _ wanting to- _ thinks similarly. He hates that, because he hates attempting to predict an outcome as something less than pleasurable (if not clear: dying is very not pleasurable), because then that just becomes an excuse for someone to not put in their all for a fate. 

However, he’s also had a _ very _ tiring day, and therefore, is not very much himself right now. 

After all, he recently just learned his mom had an interesting sex-life and a godly dickdown (something he truly could’ve went his entire life without knowing), and that a half-goat-whatever-the-fuck-man exists.

Then, Bakugou remembers that he _ hates _ everything and who the _ fuck _ does this customized Lego character think he’s doing? Think he’s doing trying to flatten Bakugou underneath more than probably four-fifty kilograms?

“C’mon, bring it! You fucking looked like god got bored while making you! Like he stuck a couple Lego parts into yellow Play-Doh that picked up hair from the carpet-”

“Please, Kacchan. He can’t understand what you’re saying.”

Then, fucked up Furby practically _ screeches _, a sound that Bakugou definitely was not expecting from a creature like that (wow, it’s almost like it’s a reasonably thought to believe that a half-bull half-man monster would make you know, either one of those sounds that its physiology is made of!). 

“That’s. Oh my god.” And there’s a tremor in Deku’s weakass voice, faint in the cloud of snorts and snarls emitted from the monster as tall as god’s home could be, yet, it’s the only thing Bakugou’s ears are attuned to pick up on.

He hates that.

Stupid, weak Deku.

Then again: Bakugou supposes he _ really _ can’t just blame him. Sure, Deku is definitely a bitch and has the attitude and mentality of one (but when was the last time Bakugou really knew that? Two years ago, back at the end of junior high when he told him to take a nosedive off the roof?).

But to blame Deku for feeling fear at this moment, when mythology slinks off the pages of their school textbooks and telling Bakugou _ exactly how insignificant they are in this world _ , _ in _these worlds-

Bakugou feels shivers.

“Jesus Christ that’s not human.” 

“Really?” And Bakugou rounds to Deku, pretending as if he’s still something in this vast world, as if everything isn’t apparently a house of cards in unstable winds and that there’s so much more behind the cardboard walls but he’ll never see anything but the most horrific glimpse of it and it might be _ better _ if he’s never saw-

And he finds it easier to scream at Deku, who’s staring at him with something unidentifiable in his gaze, something dulled behind plexiglass eyes and powdery darkness collecting in the creases of his eyebags.

It’s easier to stare, fixated at something he’s known since he was a child and knows how to handle and can predict, knows how they’ll react, unlike what’s tremoring the earth to its ocean floors, what’s less than a foot away from his body right now with waspy eyes and curled horns-

And then he slowly, years late, realizes the silence in Deku’s expression, the blankness despite the guantness of his eyes, how it’s a cavity of rot filled with something disgusting-

Pity.

And Bakugou realizes that he doesn’t even know Deku anymore.

That gets Bakugou angrier than he thought he’d be.

Bakugou gets through things out of spite.

And he turns to the Minotaur, and screams right back.

“Child what the fuck are you doing you going to get involved in a screaming match with him? Is that what the fuck you’re doing?”

“Old Hag, I'm BUSY-”

“Yeah, screaming till you sound like you have Chlamydia in the throat.”

“Bakugou-san _ please _-”

And Bakugou has no idea what the absolute living _ fuck _ he’s doing, but the bile flushing through his guts is back, searing holes into the pits of his stomach, eating through his body raw-

“Who the fuck you said my dad was again?”

“Uh. Ares. Pretty angry. Had a biker jacket-”

And he stops her at the 'biker jacket'. "Okay, cool, that’s all I need to know. HEY DAD, YOU DEADBEAT-”

_ “Jesus Christ, Kacchan _.”

“LISTEN, I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS, YOU’RE MY FUCKING DAD RIGHT? APPARENTLY A GOD? SO YOU BETTER AT LEAST GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THIS SITUATION-”

“Brat, shut _ up _ you think he’ll just respond? All he does is get around, really, a deadbeat still living in the _ Greaser _ aesthetic.” And Bakugou nearly freezes, something glaciar and sharp cutting through his intestines that’s microwaving shards of broken mirrors reflecting fear and anger from him, from his _ mom _.

His mom sounds scared all the time, always smothering her trepidation towards Satoshi burning through their beer stash once more, always nailing a wicked and metal grin over her emotions.

This time, he glances over, and sees the utter apathy preserving his mom’s features.

However her voice suggested otherwise.

Her tone was clipped: jumping around in staccatos of anger before mellowing out from hopelessness.

And at that, he raises his voice even louder in his next shout: “OR ARE YOU REALLY JUST A NOBODY? HUH? YOU CRUSTY-ASS? I BET YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE CHEETOES-”

“Kacchan, the monster is literally less than five seconds away from us KACCHAN-” And Deku’s voice pitches higher, and Bakugou feels similarly, as if there will never be enough air again because he’s literally _ lifting _ off his feet by the pounding of the Minotaur’s charge, and god he’s so _ close _ and _ his speed- _

Bakugou feels something puncturing staples against his voice box, the hopelessness being the nailgun itself. His tongue too fat in the dry limpness in the tunnel of his throat, he realizes he can’t scream anymore.

And though his brain is both running and frozen at once, he’s able to decide at that moment that he _ hates _ the world becaue not only did it take away his mom’s comfort, his life, their fucking dumbass car he never even liked- it’s taking away his last resort of saving, his wicked tongue that he always felt confident from.

He always relied on his mouth to get the last word, and he can’t even have that. 

_ “Potty mouth on this one, huh?” _ And his voice crackles out a groan, flickering between radio channels by the splice of calmness within the calamity surrounding them, the source of calm being this dry voice of the desert night controlling the anger in his mind. Not exterminating, not telling him to calm down- simply soothing out the fire within him, keeping the pot from burning and instead warming. _ “Well, I don’t see why not.” _ And something sears his palm, burning through the evidence of his fights in the form of callouses and scarred knuckles. He flinches, voice cracking in surprise at the sudden pain, _ and that was a mistake _. The yelp completely eats the last bit of oxygen crammed into his deprived brain, and he sees the Minotuar less than two arms away and at that sight fire consumes the edges of his vision as fear licks through the residue of his tears-

And he lifts his arms almost desperately, when a sudden explosion that he only knew existed due to a loud boxing sound that knocks him backwards. His body dolls against the sand, caking in it almost like he’s a slice of raw chicken that was egged enough to roll around in breadcrumbs before frying.

Ew.

Slowly, he sits up, adrenaline somehow saving him from the edge of unconsciousness, and his vision is lobbing like ping-pongs while he can see the colours of his breathe and smell the edges of his vision.

“K-kacchan?” And at first he thinks it’s an echo of his memories right before death, before he realizes the irritation bubbling inside of him as an instinctive reaction to that stupid-ass nickname is literal proof he’s not dead yet.

That, or literally even in death, he can’t rest in peace. Fucking Deku.

“What the _ fuck _-”

And his voice sounds mechanical against the symphonic bubble of a million forks against plates clocking his eardrums.

“Uh. You just made explosions with your hands.”

“What the hell are you talking about Deku- oh my god _ bull _,” and the bull is kicking, withering just a few meters away from him, and Bakugou’s organs nearly shut down right then and there when the thing towers to its full height.

Bakugou’s not fuckin’ scared of bullshit, but he’s also not dumb to think that he’s going to win against this fucking megalodon creature.

Soot cakes the wetness of the monster’s snout, and right where its orbital right eye of gold should’ve been, carrying secrets of this world that Bakugou is not a part of, is a cave of bubbling red, dribbling down the clots of its fur.

And he recalls Deku’s words, and he quickly looks at his hands that feel warm, not painful, but definitely _ hot _. He stumbles slightly, and plants his heels against the sand.

When he draws back, he hesitates, something clotting his throat with webs of emotions.

The sizzling sand, almost glittery, almost _ glued _ together, cools instantly the moment his hands left.

He nearly just made glass with his own hands.

He can’t swallow, the dryness of his puckered throat nearly fucking cutting off his respitory system, and _ wow _ now even his own body is trying to kill him.

Mother Nature really wants him thwacked.

“K-Kacchan, what did you _ do _, h-how did you do that-”

“Oh my God. Guess Ares did respond to you after all,” and his mom is to his side, almost cautiously edging around him, still teetering on nubby heels that are rounded and uneven from the ten-minutes of previous wear. “Surprised, considering how you’re rude as shit.”

“Oi, he’s fucking rude as shit for putting me on this earth. Like, he fucking made me- I am his sperm _ personified _. Take fucking responsibility!”

"Do gods have sperm?" 

That question goes promptly ignored, because Deku is firstly a freak of nature with the need to know how saliva probably works, and secondly, that's a question that Bakugou does not know the answer to and he's frankly not ready for that sort of acceptance yet.

Then, he hears it._ "I did, shut up. I only saved you because you were so annoying.” _ And Bakugou desperately tries to locate the source of the raspy and unfamiliar voice, having a rather logical assumption of who it is.

At least, as reasonable as assuming a disembodied human voice belongs to one of some kinda god whose name sounds like a geometry term could be. 

Bakugou ignores the possibility of schiznophrenia. 

“I don’t think gods grant their mortal children powers, though. Maybe it's a one-time thing? Whatever power he gave you probably won’t last, just temporary. At least, I don’t see why a god would want to grant a child like _ you _,” and he nearly bites off his mom’s accusatory finger jammed in his face.

He also just knows that’s not the case. Smoke is still curling out between the crevices of his fingerprints in faint, steady wisps.

He doesn’t tell his mom that, though, since despite all her previous bravado and rather positive outlook on meeting their end, there’s something hollow in her tone. He doesn’t think he can afford thinking too deep into that. 

“Mom. Why’d you even bring us out here?”

“Well, because I meant to take you to a camp nearby. Imagine summer camp, but for kids like you.”

“Isn’t that just juvie?”

And Bakugou is going to cream Deku’s face with his own mom’s eggbeater in right after this.

“I mean. Reasonable guess,” his mom shrugs, and the little brat beams. Bakugou snarls instinctively at the light reflected off of the kid. “Also, the Minotaur is literally recovering right now, so we should_ go _, because we actually have a chance of making it. It’s like half a mile away-”

“There’s no way I’m going to make it,” Deku suddenly wheezes.

“I’ll _ kill _ you if you don’t.”

Deku stares at him, blinking slowly, then, squints, slowly sliding his gaze to the side in the dramatic act of musing. Bakugou bristles. “Kacchan. I’m literally going to die either way.”

“Let’s _ go _, if you two continue arguing I’ll fill both of your lungs with instant cement.”

And they run, whether out of fear of the Minotaur or of his mom’s wrath, he’s not entirely sure, but his feet are suddenly motorized to just take him as far away as possible. Because _ damn _. He’ll literally be so fucking pissed if he ends up dying the same pathetic death as Deku, who’s a literally permanent Oscar the Grouch cosplayer.

Then, he hears a rather loud growl from behind.

And even though his heart is probably going to go into cardiac arrest at the rate he’s running (because sure, he exercises. If his daily fistfight with fucking dumbasses in the Walmart parking lot at midnight while still in school uniform counts), he finds it in himself to spare a breath for screaming. “FUCK YOU-”

“K-KACCHAN-” Deku is probably a couple footsteps behind him (and how the fuck did the nerd end up not dead yet? Fallen behind? Even his mom in thrifted heels digging into the shores of a beach is somehow faster, and _ expectedly so _.).

Maybe Deku is not Deku from a year ago, who had quivered underneath his patronizing glare and droll expression.

Because Deku’s shout is warped with frustration and exasperation, something Bakugou thought he bullied out of him.

And Bakugou does not know how to feel about that.

“I WASN’T EVEN TALKING TO YOU.”

“UGH-”

“There, there!” His mom’s sharp shriek effectively distracts him from turning around and dragging _ both _ himself and Deku down because _ fuck _ that kid.

“What.”

“The trees!” And suddenly, because his mom is a fucking monster (no wonder she got Ariethmatic the god to pay attention to her), she somehow _ speeds up _, running towards a pair of bendy trees.

“What.”

“Don’t copy me Deku!”

“KACCHAN NOW’S NOT THE TIME-”

“SHUT UP.”

And then Bakugou suddenly hears a loud bellow, and a shriek, and instinctively, he turns around and his eyes blow and suddenly he _ seriously _can’t breathe, like no, seriously this time, like mom this isn’t funny he really can’t breath he can’t-

Deku, the stupid dumbass, has truly fallen behind, and is now in the fists of the monster.

And god, Bakugou hates the kid, hates him who acts so fucking self-righteous all the time when no one literally asked for his dumb moral views or for his _ fucking help _ . Bakugou wants to close the window of opportunity to be saved right in the kid’s face, wants to see his stupidly deceptive visage _ crumple _ and finally understand that it was _ his _ own fault for pushing expectations onto others, that _ no one _ betrayed him because it’s his fault for having to believe in others who never _ wanted _ his opinion about them-

But he doesn’t want the kid dead.

(Well. Just kidding! Haha. _ Unless- _)

And Bakugou forces his cement feet to move because none of this is out of instinct: this is all inexperience, fear, adrenaline all sweating out of him. He reeks of Deku’s stupid pee; his mom’s perfume that she always wears now after Satoshi said it had the scent of a cheap prostitute; the scent of rotten hate in the DNA of every cell in his body-

And huh.

Mixed in the corroding smell, he can almost detect something sweet.

Like burnt caramel.

Then fire combusts out of the creases of his palms, and he stumbles back by the recoiling blow, and he blinks, surprised that it happened when his hands were literally shaking at the prospect of it not happening (and then Deku would truly be dead, gnawed into bubbling cud but _ meaty _-).

The Minotaur is screaming, and with nothing more than clicking teeth and shuddering breathes, Bakugou realizes _ he was wrong. _

Bakugou is almost never wrong.

_ But he was wrong. _

The screech from earlier wasn’t something inhumane or disturbing as he and Deku presumed. It fits right into the criteria of something a half-bull, half-man would sound like.

He sounds like any human being roasted alive.

_ Disgusting. _

“K-KA-”

And Bakugou feels his flames sputter, because he’s tired, and the smoke itself is clogging any space left for oxygen in the ravines of his brain, and he’s so _ tired _-

And so he does what he does best. 

He finds a Very Big Rock.

“Kacchan, he’s hurt, you can throw it at his burn wound, here-”

And Bakugou is literally oxygen, sleep, will-to-live deprived at the moment, and the _ last _ thing that’ll help is Deku telling him what to do.

So he just throws it as hard as he can.

He watches, almost anticlimactically, as the stone suddenly takes off the bull’s right horn almost instantly.

Well, damn.

“Oi, Katsuki, c’mon.”

“Uh.”

Then, probably because she’s _ tired of his bullshit _, his mom escalates her voice almost dramatically. “KATSUKI, YOU THINK THE MINOTAUR IS SCARY? HUH? YOU WANT ME TO COME THE FUCK DOWN THERE?”

And Bakugou is running, but not before suddenly grabbing a pitch of sand off the floor, and chucking it straight into the monster’s good eye. 

This time, he drags Deku who’s still still in his spot, ashen and eyes fluttering and _ Mary and Joseph _ Bakugou is _ not _ dealing with an unconscious human meatbag. So he practically whirls the kid to the ground, ignoring his shrieks, sending him tumbling onto the sand. Bakugou staggers back, his muscles tensing from the drainage of instinct, of energy to even support his body weight, until he stops.

There, pitched in the sand, is the dumb fucking horn of this dumbass bastard.

He clambers forward, and picks it up, only to nearly stumble back onto his ass.

It’s _ heavy _. Possibly two-thirds of Deku’s weight.

Grunting, he begins to run, kicking Deku as he passes by.

“IZUKU, KATSUKI, I _ WILL _ FIND INKO IF YOU DON’T HURRY UP.”

And Bakugou greys.

He’s seen Midoriya-san open the door to potential robbers, and nearly beat them to death with the bottom of her mint blue Standmixer.

He wills himself to go faster.

* * *

And it’s only when he approaches his mom, does he see it.

The numerous buildings behind the two trees, but almost like a mirage, as if it’s not really there.

He takes a second, staring at the ghost town.

“What. What is that?”

“Uh. Are you dumb? It’s a camp? Now GO-” And before Bakugou can protest because _ hey don’t tell him what to do _, his mom is shoving him through the two trees, and suddenly, Bakugou feels clean again.

As if he’s not surrounded by a sickening sweet smell of Snickers burning on the bottom of a charred cookie pan, as if he’s not suffering crystallized burns from vaping in some high school bathroom.

And as his sinuses and panic clears, so does his vision.

He’s almost vaguely concerned and traumatised that he didn’t see the giant mob of brats crowding right in front of him. Almost at least a hundred, if not more, _ children _, are staring back at him. The one closest to him with Santa-Clause themed hair slowly lies down on the grassy field in front of him, and closes his eyes.

Okay then. _ Nope, mom, pick me up _ now.

And he rounds to the direction of his mom, to shout at her to _ take them home _, only to freeze.

Almost like an illusion, through what he’s presuming to be a barrier between the threshold of the two gnarled trees, is a distorted ripple of his mom being picked up by the throat by the Minotaur.

Stupid Deku is cowering behind her.

All at once, the freshness of the false escape of danger rips out of him, leaving his bones drying in the rattlesnake dryness wavering the outside world.

He begins to run back, because _ mom _-

Is a shower of gold.

Flecks of glittering gold in the dreary landscape of Cowardly purple and vomited pink, of broccoli green, freckled neon green, green, _ green greengreengreen _

“Mom?”

And he hasn’t cried for her in years, embarrassed by whether or not it’d harm his reputation, even though he’s just at home, glancing disgustedly at Satoshi, and utterly ignoring the husk of his mom.

She wasn’t a husk.

He just ddin’t want to make the effort to look past the image she put up for Satoshi. She probably never thought he’d do that.

She must’ve felt betrayed.

“Wait, bro, you can’t go out there.” And Bakugou didn’t even realise he was struggling against anything. “I’m sorry, it’s too late, she’s gone, it’ll be safer if you’re here-”

“Back _ off _-” And Bakugou shoves hard at whatever chest is crushing against his shoulder, because who the fuck told alll these extras to step in his way?

And his palms are burning hotter than the back of his eyeballs that are broiling the protein in his whites, and _ he’ll burn all of them, kill everyone in his way have all the kids see that they don’t mess with him _ and mom-

Is gone.

She’s gone, and all that’s left is golden glitter.

And he rushes out, despite the clammering cries, suffocating shouts and overall _ annoying _ vibes he’s getting from everyone else.

He steps past the threshold, and feels the depressing atmosphere engulf him, like clay molded around his plastic figurine of a body.

“Deku.” And he’s startled by the apathy creasing the lines of his words, articulating them with a harsh click. It doesn’t sound accusatory: just cold.

“Kacchan, I-I’m sorry.” And he must be. Deku always is sorry, always fucking apologises. Earlier, when he sounded _ annoyed _at Bakugou even during the weird pee-scene, sounded like a real goddamn human being rather than a sniveling victim- 

Bakugou almost felt okay with his presence. 

And now he’s back. 

Bakugou takes a second, because he’s sure if he hadn’t, he would’ve highkey punted the runt with the inside edge of his sneakers. “Are you fucking dumb? Not your fault. It’s not like you could’ve done anything, anyways.” He takes a second, staring at the bull who was jerked over Deku, but had hesitated, paused at the sound of Bakugou’s voice.

Its one good eye narrows, the other one doing the same action yet only spurting out a stream of red.

_ Mom. _

It’s pitiful, how her life amounted to this. And Bakugou pauses. His mom isn’t dead. Her body isn’t here. This is just some stupid-ass magic shit. Half animalistic humans exist.

Slime monsters that he had no idea where it even went exists.

Deku exists.

But his mom’s corpse doesn’t right now. She’s just gone. Not dead.

“Fucking want to fight me? I have your dumb horn, you horny boy-”

“Kacchan, please think before you speak.”

And Bakugou’s _ done _ with Deku’s unnecessary extra-commentary, because he is _ not _ the main character of this fucking fic, and he just reaches forward with utmost irritation because why can’t the boy keep himself in check- and yanks him by the nape of his neck. Then, like a bowling ball, barrels him towards the threshold, and watches him stumble down. Useless.

“Deku, _ move _, get between the trees-”

Bakugou leaps forward, ready to run and drag him up because he’s literally so _ useless _, unable to care for even his fucking self after Bakugou’s covering for him, only to stop at a bellow.

“Right. My mom. She’s not dead, she’s just _ gone _ , what the fuck did you do to her?” And he’s not even horrified by the obvious throatiness of his murky voice, because it’s his _ mom _ and she deserves more than his ungrateful snaps and his stupid machoness towards her.

The monster simply snorts, and rears.

“Right. Forgot you’re fucking unintelligent, you overgrown mustache.” And as the stupid dumbass monster slams forward, definitely ready to crush him underneath his body weight, he lunges forward, with the stupid, stupid flaky ass croissant-shaped horn in his hands pointed towards him.

It’s almost sickenly smooth, how the horn slides straight through the sinews of its chest. 

  
  
  


And Bakugou stares, horrified.

The monster didn’t remain as a corpse.

Rather, he also disappeared in a cloud of gold. His mom did that, too.

  
  


Bakugou killed the Minotaur, and if that’s the case, then by transitive property the Minotaur must’ve killed his mom.

* * *

“He just took down the _ Minotaur? _ Did you see him? That was so fucking manly I-”

And Todoroki looked on, mildly concerned as Kirishima nearly has an asthma attack right there. He finally sits up, stretching up from the grass patch he decided to take a nap on.

“He looked like he was going to kill_ you, _ I mean. Look at him right now,” Uraraka murmurs disapprovingly, gesturing outside the barrier.

Todoroki watches, utterly unimpressed, by the streak of blond in the dreary landscape attempting to commit first degree murder on the other boy that had arrived with him. They’re both dusted with flecks of gold, no doubt from the Minotaur.

And Todoroki narrows his eyes, because _ him _? The kid clearly has an affinity for the irrational, and overall appears to only reacted out of adrenaline and anger- absolutely no sense of control or real forethought.

He crinkles his nose.

“You know. He kinda looks like he’s going to kill the other kid.” Jirou says, almost mildly.

“Nah, why would he do that?” 

They watch as the kid suddenly heaves a rather big branch.

“Is none of you guys going to greet him?” Aizawa-sensei suddenly inquires, one of his ears flicking, a reflexive twitch that Todoroki has caught on to be something that happens whenever he’s irritated. Or whenever Monoma breathes.

“Isn’t that your job?” Kirishima inquires, not unkindly.

At this, Aizawa-sensei groans, one of his dusty hooves burrowing into the ground, and Todoroki eyeballs it warily, knowing that he also claims to have a “subconscious” reflex of kicking specifically the nearest child in sight whenever he’s forced to do something past his job description.

The other day, after Kirishima accidentally drowned the goldfish before promptly crying and forcing everyone to attend his one-hour funeral, Aizawa-sensei attempted to drown the boy in the nearest waterfountain. Apparently, he was “only trying to help Kirishima join Goldy #2”, since he looked so sad.

“Uh. I really think we should get them inside. Or at least the blonde one, he’s clearly going through something,” Jirou huffs, slouching defensively, and Todoroki eyes the side where mutliple kids are watching, despite the fact that they’re literally witnessing manslaughter taking place. So nothing out of the usual.

Todoroki barely flinches as the blonde attempts to break the other boy’s leg in the headlock position he currently has him in, the same way he broke his branch from earlier over his back.

“Oh. A bully. So basically another Monoma.”

“At least Monoma has muscles that pull apart like Twizzlers. This one’s entire personality looks like he’s made out of beef jerky.” Jirou murmurs, her tone placid as she attempts pick off the remainder of her chipped nail polish.

At this, none of them visibly react to Aizawa-sensei’s familiar yet sudden scream, before their camp counselor quickly composes himself. 

“Good luck, sensei!” Kirishima chirrups, waving to the back of Aizawa-sensei who’s shoving through the pit of students to greet the newcomers.

Todoroki scowls.

“You know, we sent _ groups _ out to kill the Minotaur, and he just. He just _ did _ it,” Kirsihima is practically glittering, his mouth permanently unhinged.

“I mean. To be fair, none of us probably have the moutivation of our mom dying,” Jirou shrugs.

“But we had injuries from him! Iida came back injured that one time.”

Jirou squints at Todoroki. “He didn’t even _ touch _ the Minotaur, he just accidentally ran into the stone wall after losing his glasses on his head,” she jerks a hand towards the cliff lining the seashore meters away. “Besides, he looks interesting.”

“He looks like a bully.” He snarks. It was the way the boy demanded for Kirishima to move- had _ shoved _ him aside, that portrayed him as someone who expects to be listened to. 

It’s his current behavior of trying to suffocate his friend in sand right now that’s confirming those suspicions.

“Shouldn’t we like. Help his friend.”

“You didn’t see, but his friend literally bit his wrist. I think he’s used to this behavior,” Todoroki grimaces, feeling sympathetic for the ‘friend’ already. “Also, he looked angry too. Like he wanted to fight,” and Todoroki doesn’t get involved with others’ arguments, doesn’t really get involved with others in general, though, he was very close to this time.

Albeit, it’s simply because of the snide contortion of features across the blonde’s face, not necessarily because he’s thinking unselfishly. If anything, he just got annoyed: not exactly the most righteous reason.

“Oh, ‘Zawa giving him a beat down.” And Todoroki does not feel shame on quickly snapping around to see Aizawa-sensei, knowing full well of their counselor’s infamous sterness and sleep-deprivation fueled breakdowns. Though he can’t hear anything above the whispering campers and distance between him and Aizawa, he can see the distant figure of the centaur automatically whack the blonde against the head, and then shoving aside the other with little grace.

“Think they’re going to make it out alive?” Kirishima inhales, something quivering in the depths of his tone.

Oh. 

Well, Todoroki feels absolutely no mercy.

They watch as the blonde sways onto two feet, posture slouched in a way that radiates ‘I’m-the-shit-and-I-literally-smell-like-it’, and Todoroki recoils, disgruntled even without being in direct contact with the boy.

Then, Aizawa slowly rounds to the boy, before whacking him.

Hard.

The boy crumples like a sack of potatoes.

“Ouch,” Jirou comments, rather lacklusterly.

“Deserved.” Uraraka grumbles.

Todoroki agrees.

“Dead,” Kirishima says, mournfully.

Todoroki breathes. Yeah. Agreed. 


	2. "oh, i guess my mom isn't dead"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uh. hospital bed
> 
> i'm actually not even sure anymore sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is actually 1/2 of a chapter i spenT literaLLY so long on this chapter like it's been mOnths but i never posted it because the length was like weirdly long and i had to spend so much time cutting out dialogue.
> 
> ajsdklf;aj'

“I think he killed him.” 

“Good.”

At this, Todoroki ignores Kirishima’s look of fatherly disapproval- as if he wasn’t used to that already. “Todoroki, you don’t even know the kid. Give him a chance.” And almost as if he’s already adopted the new children, Kirishima protectively dumps another batch of shaved ice over the blonde’s bloodied head that’s branded with a rather hoof-shaped bruise. On the other bed, lies the green-haired boy who promptly fainted when Aizawa slotted like a cheap folding chair while parking all four of his horse legs into a sleeping bag. 

“I think. We should not be dumping ice on his head.” Tokoyami slowly says, with such struggling finality. 

“What if it melts and he drowns?” Uraraka thinks aloud, any concern in her tone undermined by unabashed amusement.

“Yes, please stop dumping ice on the patients,” and Todoroki mildly notes how Sen’s ‘please’ was rather uncharacteristically passive aggressive. “And I know you’re waiting for Aizawa-sensei to wake up, but you’re crowding the medical tent-”

“I think he’s dead, drowning’s the least of his problems.” Jirou shrugs, effectively cutting off everyone’s short attention span that Sen barely managed to catch. “But both boys don’t seem _ that _ bad. Sure the blonde’s loud, seemingly has a bad attitude and penchance for murder, _ but_, his mom did just die.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty wack,” Kirishima shakes his head solemnly. 

“Okay but,” and Todoroki has a yellowed flashback projected against his translucent eyelids in a rustic format, every second glitching to a new frame of his childhood before his mom practically vanished into Nothingness. She might as well be dead, too, if she was going to leave him to Enji. “I’m pretty sure he was an asshole before his mom died,” he mutters, his own experience numbing his sympathy. Absent parents doesn’t always justify being such a jerk- this entire camp could testify.

“I’m also entirely convinced that both of them are psychopaths.” Tokoyami says rather passively, kickstarting Todoroki into a flashback of witnessing the twos’ interactions. When Aizawa basically K.O’d the blonde with a single back-kick, the green one simply stared on with slight horror, before solemnly whispering a Christian prayer in thanks. Vaguely worrisome despite being understandable.

“Perhaps they’re not accustomed to societally accepted human interaction?” Todoroki muses.

“Todoroki, when you first came here you tried to eat a boiled egg with the crust on.” Tokoyami says, and Todoroki Does Not like the judgment in his tone. 

“Tokoyami,” Uraraka murmurs. “Please...it’s not a crust,,” and Todoroki recoils, startled by the obvious fray of mental sanity in her tone.

In the background as a blurry extra who’s unfortunate enough to witness the unfolding scene, Sen squints. Squints _ hard. _

  
  


“I didn’t know you had to peel it,” Todoroki mutters. He never had a boiled egg before joining this camp. It’s not like he could _ microwave _ an egg, and he was never taught how to cook. He also never had the idea of using boiled water for anything other than cup noodles. 

Touya and Fuyumi were the only ones who knew how to at least scramble an egg- after they left, Natsuo was the sole feeder.

Todoroki had fun visits to the hospital to have his stomach pumped for food poisoning while Natsuo's gut culture literally could break down anything, and therefore, was free of the consequences of his own impious creations.

“Look, Todoroki, you made Kirishima upset. He literally looks so disappointed,” Aoyama sighs, as if he’s not currently prosecuted for eating the entire camp of one-fifty-eight kids’ supply of cheese puffs the other day. And Todoroki does not care, because he’s not even here to make friends. He’s just at this dumb camp because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go, after his local YMCA threatened to call the police on him because the cleaning staff caught him camping out in the kiddie playground for a second consecutive week. Apparently, he was “disturbing the general public’s peace”, and “scaring the children”. According to them, “wearing the same pair of swim shorts for two weeks in a row is disorderly conduct”, though, they clarified it was more of _ them _ being disturbed rather than anyone else, which shows an obvious and unfair bias that swayed public opinion of him.

Todoroki feels that them stalking him through cameras and observing him close enough to realise he’s been wearing Hawaiian print boxers as pseudo-underwear for two weeks is really a _ them _ problem, but by that point they already threatened to call the police so he kicked himself out. 

And they kicked him out to be left for the eight-eyed dogs and thirteen-legged monsters; that’s _ literally _ murder. He was ready to pull them into court with a lawsuit, before he ran into Sero and Kaminari who found him attempting to duke it out with a pissed honeybadger in the back of a McDonalds. 

Honeybadgers aren’t native in Japan.

That honeybadger turned out to disguise a monster, but literally in the same physical form as the animal because honeybadgers are unholy as fuck on their own.

“Kirishima being mad at you has the same vibes of a disappointed mom,” Uraraka comments sagely, from where she’s capping the Magic Marker she used to draw a dick on the unconscious and unknown blonde’s forehead.

“Parental disappointment has no effect on me if I’ve built a tolerance for it.”

“Todoroki, no.”

Todoroki narrows his eyes, staring at Kirishima’s blank and tired expression, and takes a long sip of stale water that was left in the infirmary since last week. That said week, he was bedridden from shattering his leg after trying to climb out of the well where he was releasing thousands of goldfish. 

Later, Uraraka told him that goldfish was an invasive species.

“I mean,” Kirishima begins, frowning slightly. “I’m not saying he doesn’t have a rather brash attitude-”

“He literally tried to snap his friend’s neck?” Todoroki reasons. He’s pretty sure that sudden murder isn’t desirable in a friendship, but it’s not as if he’s ever really bothered to meddle in obtaining one, so perhaps this is a factor of a strong bond that he’s simply unaware of?

He knew socializing sucks.

_"Sacre bleu,_ _tu dis une telle phrase, et encore, tu parle ils sont amis!"_

“I need subtitles,” Jirou says. 

Rounding to Todoroki, Aoyama clarifies: “I said ‘dear Lord, you said so confidently that ‘he tried to snap his friend’s neck’, and still called them friends.” 

“Who, me?” Todoroki recoils. Right, he said that. “I mean. I suppose if I wanted to be strangled I prefer someone familiar to do that-”

“What.” And Todoroki does not need prosecution from Tokoyami, who he deemed to be okay in terms of acquaintances. 

“This conversation does not pass the vibe check,” Kirishima judges, saying one of his weird phrases that none of them can decipher. Kirishima, being relatively new to camp and therefore is more updated on mortal’s pop culture, consequently assaulted their entire population with the concept of memes and internet slang that seems to have no human dignity nor salvation from the gods.

“I say opposite. If it’s a stranger, I’d feel less bad about beating their ass,” Uraraka opposes, being the only one to take the conversation seriously. Todoroki falls quiet. Not an unreasonable point- certainly one he’d have to mull over. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Uraraka- the girl had always been worringly friendly, and he isn’t sure if it’s due to some weird self-righteous complex or because she’s pitying him, but it’s concerning exactly how _ okay _ he is becoming around her. 

Her being honest about her opinions when it comes to ass-beating skills contributed to a lot of his current comfortableness around her constant presence. 

“I say let’s _ not _ get strangled, and you guys are crowding the space,” Sen suddenly intervenes. They all casually reflect his glare. Sen, who actually stays in the medical tent as Recovery Girl’s assistant, isn’t fond of other campers joking around in his workspace, unless if they are drastically injured. Todoroki isn’t sure if that says a lot about Sen’s personality, but he also does know that Sen appears to be the calmest kid with the most self-restraint in their entire camp of neurodivergent (and probably neuro-ethical-in-literally-every-possible-way) sea of kids. So if Sen happens to think that someone having a broken arm is valid and liberating, then Todoroki finds him competent enough to be supported in those morals.

“Why are we still here, we’re crowding the medical cot-” Uraraka suddenly frowns, pointing out.

“I _ just _ said that-” Sen’s unamused (and exasperated) murmur disperses within everyone’s lack of attention.

“Yeah, why _ are _ you still here?” Monoma sneers, who has purposeful selective hearing.

“Ah, I forgot he was here,” Jirou murmurs, and not even Sen, who looks like he’s point-eight seconds from decking one of them, disputes that.

“Excuse me? I actually _ work _ here-” And _ huh_, actually, Todoroki’s pretty sure he forgot about Monoma’s presence. The boy was quiet for the past five minutes, and therefore gave Todoroki an efficient amount of time to forcefully wipe him from his memory. 

“Sure, working here. As an intern,” Jirou mutters loudly.

Monoma steamrolls over her clarification: “and you guys are here because of some shitshow. Go before I kick you out!”

“Monoma you’re as flimsy as a blow-up doll,” is all Jirou says. “Your bone would invert if you kicked snow.”

“Jirou. _ Please-” _Kirishima chokes.

“Yes. _ Please_, all of you guys, go attend to your actual classes and activities-” Sen says, not unkindly, almost tiredly fond, though, he could easily be mannered out of obligation and forced self-restraint.

“You know, I think I figured it out,” Todoroki gapes, detached from the mainstream conversation, focused on a sudden and rather clear linkage forming in his mind. “It’s better to not be friends to strangle each other, because then that clears me out for throttling you,” he finishes, pointing at Monoma. Todoroki isn’t fond of anyone in this camp- there’s a disconnect between his interpretation of the world and theirs, but at the very least everyone’s tolerable. Some are even friendly towards him, even if he feels more distant or awkwardly annoyed due to it. 

Monoma on the other hand, Todoroki wants to helicopter into the lake like a skipping stone. 

“_ What _.” Tokoyami repeats, something tired in his statement. Once again: Todoroki doesn’t want judgment from him. 

“What.” Kirishima murmurs, the way that Fuyumi used to whenever Touya and Natsuo snuck out and made excuses along the lines of: ‘had to return shoplifted glue because it didn’t get me high enough’. 

“What.” Echoes another. Another voice. One that Todoroki does not recognise. 

And Todoroki stiffens, and whips his head to find the source of the new commenter.

He pauses.

There, still buried under an entire mound of shaved ice, is the blonde, unresponsive. Uraraka’s markered penis is still on his forehead. Todoroki slides his eyes to the next bed. _ And the green-haired boy is conscious, staring at him. _

“Oh. You’re the ‘Deku’ kid.” Todoroki blinks, and the boy’s blearily gazing at him, but at least he’s responsive to his given nickname. 

“Todoroki, you can’t just say ‘Deku-kid’,” Kirishima chides.

“No, it’s fine. My name is Midoriya butcha betcha Kaccha calls me Deku...cha...- _ oh my god where am I _-” And it seems as if traumatic realisation crammed into his brain after it mentally downloaded screenshots of the last five hours.

“It’s okay, you’re safe here!” Uraraka stammers, as Sen begins to grab a towel out of a bucket of warm water. “Uh, I’m Uraraka Ochako-”

“_Bakugou-san died_-” Whatever he was going to say next was efficiently muffled as Sen carelessly slaps the wet towel over his face. 

“Um. And this is Camp Half-Blood and clearly you must be a demigod as well, uh, I’m the daughter of Demeter and farming’s _ great _ it’s so cheap and self-sufficient and wait sorry I’m getting off track-”

“There was a _ man-horse _a horse-man-” Midoriya’s voice, surprisingly clear through the towel that shifts with each mouvement of his mouth.

"And this is Aoyama!" Uraraka laughs awkwardly. Aoyama waves. 

"Oh my god the car broke down into pieces like Legoes-" Midoriya's clawing his face.

“And this is Jirou!”

Jirou looks mildly offended for being dragged into this conversation that personifies an emotional breakdown.

“She’s uh. She’s the daughter of Apollo-”

“Is Kacchan _ okay _-”

“And that’s Sen!”

“No.” Is all Sen says, before walking away. And if Todoroki recalls correctly, Sen is supposedly the professional child: the one with the aura of responsibility and tranquility: a peaceful sense of confidence and reliance.

Sen right now is talking like Aizawa-sensei with the self-esteem of a wet carpet, and therefore, sounds literally nothing like his image suggests.

Todoroki supposes dealing with campers like them probably weighs down one’s general good-naturedness. 

“And that’s Monoma-”

“Oh my God.” Midoriya whispers, his head bobbing upwards and the towel makes a wet sound as it flops onto his knee. And even his stale tone freezes Monoma’s apparent readiness to scream in indignation or more likely, a mental breakdown at everyone’s inconvenience. “Kacchan’s going to kill me.”

At the solemnity of his timbre, even Uraraka stares, looking more lost than ever.

Todoroki slowly looks at everyone else. No one else seems ready to say anything. However, clearly just looking is a massive mistake of his, since his eyes clap with Uraraka’s round ones, which harden from an automatic slant, their membranes pathetic pools of jelly. He blinks, startled. Her eyes scream: ‘_ do something!’ _

_ No. _

The plead in Uraraka’s eyes suddenly solidifies, the sugar in her retinas hardening into brittle shards. 

It’s no longer a wish from her: it’s a threat.

His mouth dry, he turns to Midoriya who’s now fixated on his legs, as if lost in the wrinkly maze of his kneecaps. “Uh.” His eyes slide over to Uraraka, who’s still radiating death. “...Welcome to Camp Half-Blood?” He greets.

Midoriya doesn’t give any indication he even hears them, though, the boy suddenly slumps over, listless, leaving Todoroki terrified. 

“Todoroki, why did you sound so unsure in your greeting, the hell,” Jirou snorts. 

“Well. At least we got this over with,” Sen finally concludes as Midoriya doesn’t make another sound.

“Somehow,” Monoma suddenly says, as everyone pitches into silence, wondering if this Midoriya is currently in shock. “I feel like.” He turns very slowly, looking at Todoroki. Todoroki represses the urge to bristle. “This is your fault.”

Todoroki takes a second to digest such an accusatory and _ very false _ statement, replying shortly: “I’m sorry. _ What. _” 

* * *

Sen is tired.

He loves people, he loves interacting with others, he loves the medical wing where he feels useful. In fact, before monsters started showing up, nearly killing his family and friends, he attended school with a rather steady attendance that's only affected by the days he found werewolves ravaging through his trashcan and pissing on his bike. He was even able to make it onto student council due to his coolheaded exterior and rational optimism.

He often has to deal with students daily who tend to be more problematic and get into fights, as well. He is (was, can't ever return) a student council member. He had to be professional, polite, agreeable yet firm and hopefully not upset anyone. 

Which is why when he watches in .03 seconds after Monoma's unreasonable accusation, Todoroki flipping the boy onto his back and attempting to run over his head with the wheels of the medical bed, he instinctively represses his urge to set the tent on fire and take everyone including himself down with it. He just has to deal.

So, he sighs, smiling his Valedictorian Smile, before shouting, "no_ fighting in the medical tent-"_

* * *

"-dical tent!" Is a rather loud scream that rattles Bakugou to his deepest core even in the midst of a coma, basically forcing him awake through sheer willpower. However, Bakugou wakes up to see a guy with two more legs than he should have, trying to wrangle a blonde kid who’s at the end of his bed, screaming very loudly as _another_ kid with weirdass, two-toned hair attempts to strangle him. 

Bakugou lays back down, and closes his eyes.

“Kacchan. I know you’re awake.”

Bakugou takes a second to process the voice.

  
  


And then he gets the _ fuck _ back up because what the _ fuck _ is stupid Deku’s voice doing in fever dream-

And he whips around to the source of the voice, to see Deku sitting next to his bed, one eye swollen and at least five of his freckles scratched off with lacerations. “What the fuck.”

“Uh. I accidentally got whacked by a guy named with Monoma because another guy named Todoroki dodged at the last minute from being boxed by Uraraka's gardening shears and haha yeah please don’t go back to sleepIdon’twanttobeleftalonewiththem-”

And Bakugou slowly slides his eyes over to the mob. 

One of the kids- _ oh my god it’s the stupid warped Canadian flag _\- is currently pretending like half of his body is not on fire, or that there's pair of partially opened medical scissors jammed into his right kneecap. “What the fuck,” he repeats, broken.

“Kacchan. _ Please. _”

And _ god _ Bakugou hates it when people beg- hates it especially since it implies they believe he gives a shit about their opinion, as if they have some initial hold on him when they _ don’t _. 

“Shut the hell up, Deku.” 

Bakugou doesn’t say more, stunned into silence as a redhead begins tearing up, hugging a _ half birdman _ who looks disgruntled be alive, at the very least. 

And how does that happen? How does one become part bird and human? Does that mean the bird gave birth to an egg that hatched a human-sized mutant, or did a human give birth to a birdman and _hold a damn minute-_ _how the fuck did they procreate the baby _there is _no_ damn way _that situation is-_

Bakugou’s train of thought crashes into a morbid carwreck as one of the kids crumples to the floor by a swift smack by a blonde's crack of his hand.

"Aoyama!" Screams the wack-ass redhead who's _already_ crying and is now crying _harder_ as a result. Bakugou realises, terrified, he's holding a lighter and no wonder the other fucker was on fire.

“Oh my God," Bakugou says, because what else can he really say after seeing someone get bitch slapped.

And Bakugou suddenly wishes he hadn't spoken (not like he’s scared but more because everyone here is literally _ insane_), as his monotonous statement that’s dead out of shock, causes every single head to turn in his direction.

“Oh! You’re awake!” Chirps a girl with rosy cheeks that gives him the impression of severe constipation or directionally-confused syphilis. Then, she snorts, staring at him. He squints. 

Bakugou then actually _ digests _ what appears to be a modernized Renaissance painting, completed in the most unexplainably satisfying way (that’s somehow amplified due to it illustrating the most mortifying situation ever), by a fucking centaur standing by the bed.

“You’re not dead!” Sobs the boy who was already previously crying, his voice choked with emotion, still flinging around gothic Fruit Loop’s bird mascot in his hugging-headlock, who looks dead inside. And then there’s the redhead’s _ goddamn mountainess, ginger Marie Antoinette hair_, which is _ already _ a whole-ass other thing that Bakugou refuses to acknowledge. "Are you still alive?" And he's still crying. 

“No I’m not.” Bakugou Decides, and Lays back Down.

“Kacchan.”

Stupid Deku. Stupid Deku who got into their fucking car, and probably catalysed this entire catastrophe because how _ else _ could shit hit the fan so bad because it _ can’t _ be Bakugou’s fault (even though his mom said the monsters were here because of _ him _ -) and it was _ Deku _ who peed on the seats (and his mom is gone-) and he didn’t even _ want _ to come here (but did Midoriya want to as well? Want to come with the Minotaur and his fucking mom _ -) _ and Jesus his mom had intercourse with magical dick-

Bakugou flings himself back up with amazing stamina that unknowingly to him, absolutely terrified Tokoyami who was standing too close to his body, as Tokoyami was under the impression Bakugou was starting hibernation in the middle of August (Tokoyami has yet to adjust to human’s terrifying adaptability to severe conditions and mortal stress, despite their affinity to succumb to natural selection).

“Oh my God. Where’s my fucking mom.”

And it wasn’t a question- it was an unspoken threat.

“...He just asked for his mom.”

“I know, Kirishima, stop talking.”

“Uraraka he just-”

“I _ know _ and he can _ hear _us.”

“I can hear you," Bakugou confirms. 

This Uraraka sighs when she sees how Kirishima appears genuinely surprised that Bakugou could in fact, hear them, despite the fact that the only distance between them were four legs, all connected to the same horse-body.

“Hm. I’m in hell,” ripoff MCR Big Bird mildly says, resigned from where he’s still headlocked by the crook of Kirishima’s flexed bicep.

"Oh," and something's grabbed ahold of Bakugou's voice, shaking it with a corrupted laugh, "me too."

But like that's cool. It's cool. Everything's chill. 

This is good.

Nothing’s wrong about this and everything’s going _ great. _

“I know you must have a lot of questions-”

“No,” Bakugou cuts off this 'Uraraka' very quickly, suggesting aggressive aggressiveness rather than passive aggressiveness. “Surprisingly, I do not. In fact, even more surprisingly, I don’t even want to talk to you,” he says earnestly.

He does not feel bad even when the Kirishima guy who looks like he molded a mountainous headgear onto his head winces, genuine hurt contorting his features. Though, he does feel as if the boy shouldn’t feel bad from _ his _ words- he doesn’t have any fault in this entire thing.

Who’s fault even is this entire shit?

Well, who was the monster after for again- should he ask mom to repeat that one more time that they’re only here because of _ Bakugou- _ but oh wait! She can’t! She can’t because she’s _ dead. _ But it's not fair because _how could he have known_. (Bakugou wonders how awful he has to get to try and excuse his role in the play of things. It’s not like the universe discriminated and conspired against him: everyone had an equal chance to have shitty as luck. And if that's the case, then he _ doesn’t _ have anyone to blame for his ignorance, no matter how much he can’t help but believe that _ it’s not fair-) _

A darkness plugs every hormone receptor in his mind, overriding the fusebox that was feebly pumping out whatever neurons and braincells he had left after having like eight and two-thirds of a concussion.

“Kacchan?”

“It’s fuckin’ Bakugou,” he snarls. “Don’t know why stupid ‘Deku’ calls me that shitty-ass nickname, thinking we’re close-” (_ “Deku why don’t you just take a nosedive off the roof- it’d be better off for everyone” _ ) and he screws his lips, hating the strange concept of _ unjust _ curdeling his stomach acid. Fine. Deku may not have deserved a lot of what Bakugou said, and maybe a lot of what Bakugou said was stupid and Bakugou would’ve beaten his own ass if he heard it spouted out someone elses’ mouth. But it’s not like Bakugou prevented Deku from defending himself: the twerp is a twerp- a coward for not doing it. It’s Deku’s fault for not speaking up (and Bakugou wonders if that’s an excuse. He _ knows _ the logic isn’t wrong: it can’t be. But whether it’s _ justified _ and appropriate, Bakugou does not know and he doesn’t _ know _ what to do with that concept, even though he _ always _ knows what to do. He wonders how much of a coward he is, to not see the fault in his own behaviours. But he doesn’t _ have _ faults- (and god it’s a paradox; a cycle; parentheses within parentheses)).

“Maybe it’s because you call him by an equally humiliating nickname,” deadpans one of the kids who has the chaotic entropy of a Category 1 Hurricane whose kill-count is nothing more than an entire game code.

“I hate your face,” Bakugou decides, rather loudly.

The fetishized Santa Claus has absolutely no reaction to that, and Bakugou decides he doesn’t just hate his face and his personality, but he _ deathly _ hates his vibes to the negative nth degree.

“Anyways, please behave yourself, you’re on our territory-” The fucker who trotted over a _ kid’s _ face with his _ cuatro _freaking hooves says, monotone, like the psychopath he is.

And Bakugou Chokes Back a remark that he doesn’t even _ want _ to be fucking here, that he just wants to be at _ home _ and he, _ he just- _

His mom dragged him out here for a reason, and she’s probably _ dead _ and that really hasn’t sunken in yet and Bakugou is pretty sure it’s disrespectful that he’s clicking ‘pause’ on downloading that entire zipped file that he’s going to encode into nothing more than molecules and nothing-

But he can’t. Bakugou does get fucking scared probably. Whatever.

And it’s cowardly that he can’t even acknowledge what his mom deserves but Bakugou _ can’t _ and-

“-acchan-”

“Shut the _ fuck _ up,” and _ God _ his voice is raspy but who the fuck cares. He doesn’t care. It’s none of their business and if they deem it weak then he’ll just refute that later with a quick headbutt and threat. Vulnerability isn’t weak but he just _ doesn’t want them to know _ because who gave them the fucking right to see him like this he just doesn’t-

-_ they don’t have the _ right _ they didn’t _ earn it _ and they’ll _ never _ be close to him they’ll never be good enough and how dare they think otherwise- _

“Kacchan!”

And Bakugou coughs wetly, and suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder and Bakugou _ jerks _ because _ nobody _ gets to comfort him (he doesn’t _ want _ it). Even if they insist he needs it, even if his mom whacks him for getting involved between her and Satoshi because he’s not supposed to (but she always _ hugged him afterwards and where’s his hug now; shouldn’t he be returning all those for one right now where _ is _ she? He doesn’t even _ have _ her body-) _. 

Bakugou doesn’t know these people. 

These people don’t know him. 

How arrogant are these assholes to presume their comfort is of any relevance to him.

And Bakugou inhales, _ spite _ opening his airways and draining the fluid of hot _ something _ (and they _ have _ to be tears because if they’re not then that means the ones he felt earlier had already escaped-), and he blinks. Hard.

He opens his eyes, to his utter annoyance, to the very same people from earlier, except now, Shitty-Hair is openly crying (what the fuck), the unfinished emo muppet is awkwardly patting his blanketed knee (Bakugou rips his leg away, and Addams version of Sam the Eagle here slowly lowers his hand), and even Knock-Off Canadian Flag looks slightly disconcerted at the very least, since his face is like, _ less _ that way and more this way.

“Um. A-are you okay?” Stutters a blonde guy with terrifyingly wide eyes. "_Salut?_"

“No. Salute to you too, fucker.” Bakugou grits back. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Sleeping isn’t going to bring back your mom.”

And Bakugou swirls around, something biting through his molars and drilling into his gums to the point where his eyes sting with something acidic and awful because what the _ fuck _-

It’s the only adult. 

The only adult with four legs.

“Fuck me,” Bakugou groans, lowering his head.

“No,” is the short response. Bakugou wants to scream. “Anyways, I don’t think your mom’s dead.” And Bakugou raises his head so quickly he’s pretty sure he reshaped his entire spine. He turns to the centaur, and while Bakugou does _ not _ make mistakes- he does feel regret for his _ not-mistake _ decisions. Because he hasn’t been the most gracious guest (to be fair, he feels like the fact he doesn’t even _ want _ to be a fucking guest should at least be taken into consideration), and he doesn’t know how much this man(?) can tolerate his bullshit.

If this is joke-

Bakugou can’t even bring himself to be mad because there’s something dangerous flooding his veins and it’s hope and it’s want and Bakugou _ needs _ to at least let his mom know how _ sorry _ he was and how he never appreciated her enough and that he’s just _ sorry _-

He's just _sorry _and he doesn't deserve a lot of things in life and he doesn't _want_ the universe to take pity on him but can't it?

“When you stabbed the Minotaur, he simply was sent back down into Tartarus, or along the regions of the Underworld depending on the mood-” And wow that doesn’t sound very certain.

And _hold the fuck up_. What the fuck does that mean? "I- _whose mood? _I- _what?_" He stares. “Sorry, did you just say fucking '_mood'_? Someone's fucking- I- what the shit my dude, is this like, the fucking weatherman?"

And because the centaur has a shorter attention span than a Goldfish cracker, he continues without answering Bakugou's question. “Monsters don't die. They reincarnate, reform, heal. And your mother disappeared in a similar fashion as the Minotaur, and there were no indications she died a mortal death, or even died at all. Most likely she’s just down there, summoned by Hades or saved by something."

“Wait, so his mom just. Just chilling down there?” Summarises one of the kids, and Bakugou gnashes his teeth to gate back a scathing remark. Because why the fuck are _ any _ of the kids still here? It’s none of their business to even be here, and he _ hates _ it when people get involved in his problems, because who gave them the right to peer at them with distant sympathy and guilty amusement? Even if they’re genuine kids and they’re just _ there _ , they still don’t _ have the right _ and he doesn’t _ care _ how innocent their current predicament is, how they’re just here by coincidence and nothing malicious, because it’s _ his _ privacy.

They’re just _ using _ his story, his situation as nothing more than something to satiate their childish curiosity, their natural need to know and learn. They’re reducing his entire weirdass tragic backstory, his _ mom’s _ Wattpad situation worthy of Harry Styles to go saving her with adoption papers and an “‘Ello”, into nothing more than a tale that distantly provokes their sympathy. It’ll only be natural for them to lose interest in his conflicts.

Kids have short attention spans- the world does as well, and time doesn’t stop for anyone.

He doesn’t have time to waste on people who simply can’t spare a second on him.

“I mean. No one’s chilling down in the Underworld.” Snarks one of the other girls whose earlobes are seemingly dragged down by heavy gauges as a purposeful fashion statement. Kirishima elbows her. 

Bakugou stops staring at her, because the longer he looks, the more he’s starting to see a Total Drama Island character in her and that show has too many repressed memories on him, especially in bad Japanese dub.

“J-Bro, _ not _ the time,” responds Kirishima in a loud whispers.

“You’re trying to be discreet again, and you’re failing, again,” Bakugou notifies not out of the kindness of his heart, but frankly because the redhead doesn’t seem to understand that people outside of his conversation can still hear him.

Stupid.

“Sorry! I wasn’t trying to make fun of you or anything!” And the redhead looks so _ sad_, that Bakugou wants to knock him out. 

“I never _ said _ you were,” Bakugou retorts impatiently. “Anyways, so my mom isn’t dead?”

“Yeah, you just have to retrieve her,” replies the adult, albeit, rather lacklusterly. “And besides, knowing Bakugou-san, if she did die as a ghost of some sort, she’d probably reincarnate herself out of sheer anger and spite.”

Bakugou freezes. “You knew my mom?”

And the man’s gaze screams: “_unfortunately” _ . Which is valid, he supposes. “First off, let me introduce myself- I'm Aizawa Shouta, her consultant." Bakugou doesn't need to dig in deep to hear the words '_unwilling__ therapist'_, the one that she mentioned she visits to rant for three hours when Satoshi pisses her off. "She was a good woman. Good head on her shoulders. Met her while I was trying to get milk from Walmart and found her in the parking lot, attempting to fight for her groceries from a baked teenager trying to steal a bag of bagels from her. For one of the few mortals who knew about our world, she lacked any sense of fear despite knowing everything else that coexists with her reality.” Then, the man’s unnervingly still eyes clasp onto Bakugou, and he can’t help but wince slightly. Though, he wonders if his instinctive need to look away is because the man literally looks like his eyes are infected to the point where they’re swollen, or if it’s due to the sudden dip in atmospheric temperature. “She wanted to hold onto you. Wanted you to have a normal life. It wasn’t until last week when she contacted me, saying your incidents were getting too much, that she knew that wasn’t possible.”

“Incidents?” Bakugou has a flashback to when he tried to flush the toilet after Satoshi took a giant dump and accidentally flooded their bathroom.

“Monsters. Things mortals would call ‘supernatural’.” He shrugs. Bakugou inwardly gags despite looking dead outwardly, as he watches the shudder ripple through his horsey-parts’ spine, ending with a jostle of his tail. What the fuck. Does he do a little jiggle too, whenever he eats or gulp? "She said that you got into particularly violent incidents with students in your school?"

"Uh."

"She told me that you fought with a girl who had vampiric features in the middle of the basketball court and stabbed a pencil into her leg."

"That bitch snitched on me?"

The centaur, if possible, looks even more dead inside.

"Did you just call your mom a 'bitch'?" And of course _they don't get it_. He simply ignores the judgment in Round Face's tone. 

"The girl you fought had overwhelming strength-" and _he told his mom that in private_ "and tried to give you a hickey, correct?" Aizawa continues. 

"I really was not into her."

"She was a blood-sucking species. Smelled demigod blood and came after you." Bakugou thinks back to that girl. He knew she was off- she was a ginger. “However, when you told your teacher, they didn't believe you, and thought you just stabbed a girl for personal entertainment." Bakugou spits at that. "Don't be mad, I don't blame them." Bakugou flips him off. "But in general, humans can't see monsters for what they really are. There’s always a mist, a fog that prevents mortals from seeing everything they shouldn’t, even when it’s the obvious or right in front of them,” he explains with a profound tone. “Oh and also you’re in New York where people in general have trouble figuring out if the citizens are monsters or people just by appearance.”

“We’re in _ New York _-” Right, they’re in New York now. This is taking place in New York. Cool. “We all speak Japanese though?”

“Yeah, just our camp. You travel a south and you’ll find a demigod camp full of Americans who communicate through morse code using gunshots,” Dumbo Earlobes claims with a snort. "There's another Greek camp in New York, actually. Also called Camp Half-Blood, since we're basically a branch of their camp and they're the original. It's a bit farther to the east of us. Chill people. Has a centaur too, except Chiron actually gives a shit about his students."

Aizawa the Centaur doesn't even deny this. 

"Okay. Can we talk about getting my mom, then?" Bakugou scoffs. "In _private_," he sends a withering gaze to the surrounding students, relishing in how Kirishima winces, and the overgrown crow appears somewhat guilty, despite like. Not really. He doesn't seem to have very strong facial expressions. "You too, Deku. Scram." And that’s the fucking thing about Deku, isn’t it? He thinks that Bakugou doesn’t mind his presence, that they’re _ best friends _ because Deku knows _ every little thing about him _ when the reality is that _ he doesn’t _ and he _ hates _ that Deku thinks otherwise; hates that _ clingy _ nature of his that makes Bakugou feel like some showcase trophy or a conquest that Deku needs to overcome or _ tamed _-

And Deku’s _ not _ like that, and Bakugou _ knows_ but every little thing Deku does, Bakugou can't help but contort into something disgusting in his head. 

And who the fuck does Deku think he is, thinking that they’re the same? Looking at him ever since they were children as if he’s _ relevant _ when Bakugou was _ better_. He was the one who threw himself into his academics, the one who was physically superior, and Deku just thinks his opinion, his worth is the same? Thinks that he's _good_ enough to save Bakugou from his home? How arrogant does Deku think, that he could _help_ Bakugou when Bakugou doesn't _need_ it because if he can't save himself then _no one can._

Deku’s admiration that felt from being his friend (when they were _ not _ equal, not worthy of being his friend. Sometimes Bakugou wonders if this is wrong), has evolved. It evolved into something taunting, and it’s worse because of how _ unintentional _ it is_. _ How self-righteous, arrogant does Deku have to be to start _ mothering _Bakugou, start chiding him on his attitude, start proclaiming Bakugou shouldn’t say certain things and instead treat him as if he’s something Deku’s worthy of evaluating and constructively criticising? 

Bakugou doesn’t know if he hated Deku’s wimpy personality more, or this one. 

Bakugou licks his teeth.

He hates Deku. Hating Deku is something familiar: this strange perspective on his own attitude and weird, sloshy, soupy feeling in his stomach each time he reevaluates some of the things he says about Deku and his current anger towards him that he _ can’t control _ but at the same time is starting to _doubt_-

It’s easier just to hate Deku.

(Bakugou wonders when he started taking the easy way in things. It makes him want to gag.)

“Wait if I’m in New York, how do I get back home?” Deku begins meekly, his tone fragile and Bakugou is now even _ more _annoyed just hearing it. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be here?”

“No, you’re not mortal.” Claims horsey-boy-man. “Probably. I mean. You saw the monsters. But you don’t...you don’t smell like a demigod.” He pauses. “Or really like anything, kind of like plastic. Kind of like burnt plastic?”

Well, Deku was fished out of a carcrash, so there’s that. 

“Cool, thanks,” Deku laughs awkwardly. “Um. What?”

“Anyways, your mom isn’t dead (probably) and I don’t know how a mortal is capable of seeing monsters, but you literally don’t smell like anything but sterilised styrofoam.”

Bakugou takes a second. “Wait. How did you just say that in parenthesis-”

“Um the shampoo I used is supposed to smell like kiwi-”

“Anyways,” says the questionably responsible adult who apparently _ knows _ his mom and his mom knew him and just _ never _ told him. “Bakugou, you need to rest. We already fed you Ambrosia earlier-”

“Isn’t that an item in Minecraft, aether pack?” Deku inclines his head curiously.

“What’s Minecraft?” Inquires MCR birdman, and even Bakugou has to finally pay attention to the sideline cheerleaders, because what fucking person older than six and younger than thirty _ hasn’t _ heard of Minecraft in this ungodly century? “Aether? Like? You mean like heaven and angels and stuff?”

“Wait, you fed me what-” Bakugou’s actually rather inclined to not question the majority of the vocabulary used here, because (1), gods and greek religion exist so might as well pile everything underneath it as possible and leave nothing off the table, (2): he has absolutely no will to involve himself in this giant mess unless if it gets his mom back. But then there’s the fact he was apparently _ fed _ something, something that his own goddamn body is processing right now, and that makes him rather uneasy, especially if it’s a food he hasn’t heard before.

He does not have four stomachs like a cow: he has _ one_. Bakugou Katsuki only has _ one _ stomach and he is _ not _ going to lose it because someone decided to shove shit into it. 

“Uh. It’s like. Stuff that heals you!” Defines Kirishima. “By the way, to properly introduce myself, I’m Kirishima!”

Bakugou flatly ignores his beaming gaze.

“Is he still smiling? I can still sense him smiling?” Bakugou hisses. Earlobe girl to the left of him nods. Goddammit.

“Yes, what Kirishima said was correct. But if you consume too much of it it’d kill you, since it’s essentially food for the gods and not necessarily for mortals.” And the stupid centaur is doing that _ look _ again.

“I feel like you contemplated feeding me more than the prescribed amount.”

“Yeah." Bakugou feels casually offended. “Anyways, your mom told me you're supposedly Ares' offspring, therefore you’ll be moving into his cabin with the others-”

“Wait, I’m _ living _ here?” And Bakugou freezes, wishing to retract those words. He doesn’t even _ have _ a home without mom. Satoshi’s probably lounging in _ their _fucking house, drinking beer he bought using his mom’s limited paycheck that can’t garner much as she’s only the secretary of some fashion company, and only thinking about their disappearance because his mom hasn’t cooked dinner yet.

However, Aizawa doesn’t respond to his outburst, almost as if sensing his own internalised doubt. “Yeah. You’re probably healed if you’re up and screaming.”

“Oi-”

“So you’ll move in. You brought stuff with you?” And Bakugou has whiplash from the sudden anime flashback with the glinting glasses and spiraling into hours ago. As he speedruns the seven stages of grief and all events that happened within those thirty minutes, forcing him to come to realisation that he probably smells like puke and urine right now, and the location of the suitcase his mom cryptically forced him to pack.

“Uh. I think it’s in the ocean,” he finally decides. “Or maybe underneath a car door.”

Aizawa does not look very Impressed.

* * *

“Why the fuck is he still here?”

“Because Kacchan, I certainly can’t leave you all alone-”

Bakugou shoots a glare at Aizawa, as if saying, '_can you believe this man'? _When Aizawa sent away the other kids so they can talk alone about his mom, he thought you know, _Deku_ would be _not_ here. 

And Bakugou turns his glower at stupid Deku, who's determined and does not have an ounce of self-centered pride but at the same time _ only self-revolving _ because has he ever considered Bakugou’s feelings? Why is it that Deku always justifies his actions through _ steamrolling _ Bakugou’s thoughts, always uses his self-righteousness as a moral compass rather than thinking maybe if Bakugou wants to fucking destroy himself then who the _ fuck _ is he to stop him?

And Bakugou’s ugly, repressed and _unfair_ thoughts smother any goodness that Deku has, corrupts his image of him to twist him into an antagonist when he’s simply just some kid who wants to be his friend. If Bakugou _wants to be left alone to rot then why is he so fucking arrogant to think he can save him why does he think he can make decisions for him, think his decisions are better for him?_

“Kacchan?”

“Shut _ up_,” and Bakugou doesn’t _ know _ how to convey all his perspective, doesn’t _ know _ how to cream it into Deku’s face and it’s _ so _ much easier if Deku would just fuck off and leave him alone and piss off from Bakugou’s punches and words and threats. But Deku is a _good person_ and that's the worst part of it. His self-righteous, heroic fucking stupid ass morals.

(And deep down, Bakugou knows that Deku is a good person and that his internalised annoyance and resentment that views idiotic Deku’s pushiness to help as an ego is wrong. That it’s nothing more than a way for him to justify his attitude towards Deku but Bakugou _ doesn’t want to be wrong _ and why should he invalidate his own feelings? His sense of annoyance is _ very genuine _ and why is it being _ ignored _ or villainised when Deku is the one invading his sense of privacy, his sense of self-concept and Deku, that bitch, who does he think he is to think he’s _ right _ , to think he knows what’s best for Bakugou because what the fuck does he know he should just _ drop de- _)

“Kacchan. You’re being foolish.” And Bakugou _ knows _ but why the fuck does Deku think his opinion is relevant enough for him to care? Why does _ he _act like Bakugou can’t handle himself why does he-

“Bakugou, stop it.” And Bakugou whips around, to shout at the stupidass centaur because why the _ fuck _ is he stepping in and- 

And Bakugou notes the narrowed eyes and abyssal blackness in Aizawa’s eyes, and stops. ”I can literally _ sense _ your anger, and you’re not communicating any of it. If you’re not going to properly communicate it, then don’t even bother showing us any of it. Don’t push the consequences of your own actions onto us, since bottling it up is your choice,” the centaur warns, and Bakugou doesn’t know how to _ explain _ because he doesn’t _ know _ how to convey it and this is probably the first time anyone acknowledged his feelings in this relationship, and that he doesn’t know what to even do with it. “Midoriya, we can’t send you back anyways, not without an escort. Besides, you may not be entirely human if you were able to see the monster in the first place, and it went after you at one point as well.” 

“Okay but.” Midoriya begins, swallowing. “What about my mom? She must be worried, do you guys have a telephone or something-” And something disgusting chokes Bakugou’s lungs, rooted at his sternum. 

Whatever. At least he knows if he calls home, Satoshi wouldn’t even pick up the phone.

“We’ll contact your mom, don’t worry,” Aizawa reassures. “Give us an address later, you can write her a note, we’ll send it through Iris.”

“What.”

Aizawa just waves him off with an impatient swish of his tail, that rhythmically waves with a flippant hand. What the heck. Bakugou Does Not Like That. “Don’t worry about it. For now, we have to discuss what to do with you. Since you’re unidentified, you can stay with the Hermes cabin. We’ll provide new clothes for you. For now, _ please _ shower. I don’t know why, but you two both smell like piss.”

And Bakugou, _hates_ himself for responding so violently to such a statement, choking on an unwillingly bark of laughter, while Deku, to his side is staring in the heavens, absolutely nothing in his gaze as he slowly clasps his hands in a prayer for forgiveness. 

"Also, Bakugou," Aizawa begins, pausing at the tent flap. "Someone drew something on your forehead."

Bakugou stunts his laugh into weak stutters, before turning to Deku. "Uh. Yeah. Um." Deku stares. "There's like. A dick on your forehead."

Bakugou pauses.

_"Deku what the fuck-"_

_"How is this _my_ fault I-"_

* * *

“You’re the new camper?”

Bakugou takes a second to process, before whirling around, narrowing his eyes, clutching his belongings reflexively close. All he has right now is his Minotaur horn, and a plastic bag of his disgusting-ass, Deku-tainted clothes that he’s just going to trash despite the fact that they fit better than the weird hand-me-downs that are simultaneously too baggy and tight on him. He doesn’t know _ why _he’s still carrying the horn with him, but all he knows is that that fucker was a little bitch, and staring at him helps him remember how he needs to see it again to truly smack it around. Hitting the fucker would be all his mom wanted for him.

“What about it?” Bakugou sneers, something primal instinctively mistrusting the person standing in front of him. The person himself, there’s something intense behind his quivering pupils, something radiating malevolence and entropy. 

Bakugou doesn’t like him.

“Nothing much! Just wanted to see what the kid everyone said defeated the minotaur really looked like.” And it’s his _ voice_. Sounds like a pussified Elmo. Bakugou takes note of his clumped, red hair.

_ Looks _ like a pussified Elmo. Fuckin’ crackhead muppet. “Looks like you have a shit attitude, though.” Oh and he’s _ bold _. 

And Bakugou normally would lunge forward- prove exactly how he doesn’t _ care _ if he has a shit attitude; he’ll just embrace it. But then he recalls Deku’s stupid-face, and his warning to _ not _cause trouble.

Oh. 

And now Bakugou _ wants _to get himself kicked out.

Then he recalls the weirdass Aizawa dude who also echoed Deku’s sentiments.

Aizawa who looks like he wants to hit him with a brick.

At that, Bakugou whirls around, finding a presumbly empty bunk, and without asking anyone for confirmation, dumps his shit onto the clean mattress. And he turns around to go leave and seek out Aizawa and ask more about his mom (and he needs to get her home), he realises for a start that the tangled Troll Doll is staring at him.

“You’re still here?” Bakugou bites. 

“It’s almost like I _ live _ here. Not very bright, aren’t we?” And _ god _(gods?) he looks so smug. The heat behind his eyelids, crackling through his vision suddenly transfers into his clamming palms. 

“It’s _ are _you. Or else you’re implicating yourself as well,” Bakugou snarks, his cool siphoning out with each snicker drawn from other campers surrounding them.

At this, his eyes, hooded, almost giving him a lazy look that broils Bakugou’s blood to a temperature that could probably bake pancake batter injected straight into his veins, fixate onto Bakugou, trembling to a beat that probably doesn’t exist on this mortal plane. “Oh. A smartass. Sure you’re an Ares kid and not an owlhead?”

“What.” Bakugou’s anger flatlines due to confusion. “What does that even mean-”

“He means Athena’s kid.” Informs a boy from the sidelines, whose tone also suggests something unpleasant, territorial.

“Owlhead,” Bakugou echoes. And that’s _ such _a shitty insult, one that takes negative braincells and enough edginess to provide sufficient egotistical self-confidence to even procure (because if he doesn’t feel second-hand embarrassment, don’t worry, Bakugou will for him). However, Bakugou also has a flashback to his little conversation with his apparent dad who you know, according to his mom, probably wears James Bond shades for the sake of aesthetics, and it feels like a dentist injected numbing solution into his face. “You know. I honestly _ wish _so.” Bakugou says without thinking.

“Knew it. You’re too pussy to even be a kid of Ares.”

“What’s up with the shallow insults? Like I feel like_ Twilight’s _director wrote your script-”

“If you are the kid of Ares, you don’t deserve to be,” scowls the other kid that Bakugou purposefully forgot existed. “We don’t want you either. Bet you weren’t even collected, yet.”

Bakugou hesitates. “Collected? Like. Trash?”

“What?”

“He means like. Claimed. Like did a symbol ever float over your head?” Says _ another _ kid, staring at him with at least not resentment like the first two weirdass dicks- rather, she appears analytical, almost angry. But not at him- instead, she looks disapproving of the others' bitchiness _ . _ “You know. Floating stuff?” She gestures above her puff of orange hair.

Bakugou stares harder. “I don’t take hallucinogens.” 

“He’s not even _ claimed _and yet he calls himself the son of Ares?” Scoffs someone from the sidelines. 

“Yeah, I talked to him?” Bakugou snorts. 

At this, the redhead whose stupid matted mullet is clinging onto his reddening visage, steps forward, and Bakugou’s hackles bristle. “Fuckin’ right. Claiming you talked to a _ god_, much less our dad-”

“_ Our _ dad’s a bitch,” Bakugou leers. He thinks back to Ares literally saving him out of annoyance. “Okay, trust me when I say _ I _ didn’t want to talk to him either,” he leers. Ares should’ve just let him die if he didn’t bother saving his mom. Then again, he supposes it’s not like Ares was obliged to watch over his mom (but Bakugou looks at the kids bored and lazying around in this cabin, all from the same father and isn’t that irresponsible? They’re his _ children _why were they brought into this world and abandoned?).

Then, the fuckin’ lobsterback grabs Bakugou’s collar, and Bakugou’s previous embers of anger flare up again by the rush of cold air flushing his insides. Almost reflexively, instinctively, he grips the redhead by his shirt as well, ready to toss him onto the floor and finish him with the edge of his elbow. 

“Hey,” and it's the orange-haired girl, whose hard tone cuts through the hostility with a cool edge. “Suzaku, don’t be that way. You're being unreasonable here due to your own pride, don't blame him for something out of his control. You're being a real jerk, a bully. Lay off."

“Why should I?” Spits this Suzaku, and Bakugou leers, recoiling at his snarl. Breath smells like his tongue’s infested with maggots. “Look at his fuckin’ attitude, thinking he can waltz in like he understands, like he’s one of us when he’s _ not _. Not yet,” and suddenly, Bakugou’s anger falters, the uncontrollable fire quelched by a sudden realisation that vacuums the atmosphere out of him, leaving only fallen stars without a night sky. Suzaku has released his shirt, and Bakugou limply does so as well, watching, almost dazed as Suzaku stalks towards the girl who told him to stop. 

They’re just like him.

And the kid in front of him, his anger is _ stupid _ and unjustified but that’s _ exactly _ like Bakugou’s (even though he doesn’t admit it, and never _ will_). 

Bakugou knows there was always the untamed aspect of his personality: something dangerous and resentful and impulsive.

Here, everyone’s just like that. And of course they’d be mad at him: talking about their deadbeat father so disrespectfully, because they probably grovel at the feet of their parents, wanting a semblance of acknowledgment. He doesn’t know if it’s pitiful or pathetic. 

He almost understands them. 

But Bakugou can’t like it here; there’s no home for him in others’. 

And Bakugou stares at the Suzaku who now looks like he's going to beat orange-haired girl with a sucker punch. Sad. Cowardly. The delinquent and problem child.

Suzaku can't be older than twelve, just tall for his age, but everything else screams _ 'i'm only starting puberty and I think swearing is cool _'.

“Oi, my name is Bakugou Katsuki,” Bakugou suddenly offers. “I don’t want to befriend you either, you have a fucking shitty attitude as well. And isn’t that enough to prove that we have the same stupidass dad who ditched us here?” He presents, stepping between the other dick and the girl who's attempting to tame him.

“Don’t you fucking insult Ares, you’re nothing more than a demigod with beginner’s luck. Who are you to say something so pretentious?” Sneers Suzaku.

Bakugou ignores his anger. “Shut up. Trust me when I say I have a thing against Ares, dad or not. Anyways. You seem less annoying than any other guy to live with.”

And he flicks Suzaku at the forehead.

Hard. 

"One day, Ares is going to regret passing up on us," Bakugou promises, ignoring Suzaku's confused yet screwed rage flashing across his face. He yawns. "Anyways, I gotta find the bathroom. Mind showing me?"

"I- fuck off."

* * *

“Please ignore Suzaku, he’s always like that.”

“Uh.” Bakugou stares, from where he’s attempting to pee in the urinal. The orange-haired-girl does not appear at all concerned about the fact that he’s trying to take a piss, or that she’s in the boy’s room. “What the fuck.”

“My name’s Kendo, and it must be irritating to be crowded by others so early on.” Bakugou stares at her outstretched hand, still at a loss for words, and every much occupying his two hands. “Oh, sorry!” She jerks her hand back. “I’m not human, I’m a wood nymph. Like Shiozaki. So I tend to forget about mortal’s sense of privacy since our kind doesn't find shame in nakedness, nor do we execrate waste."

“It’s fine?” He has no idea what the fuck is happening. 

“I’m here to apologise on behalf of Suzaku- I understand that he comes off as strong and uninviting-”

“Like a dick,” Bakugou nods with mocking sageness.

“Yes, but, remember that he shares the same father as you- your personalities derive a lot from Ares, including temperament. A lot of the campers here also experience a lot of background problems, Suzaku included, therefore he’s more sensitive when it comes to issues about family.”

“Nice to know everyone has daddy issues,” Bakugou rolls his eyes, flushing the urinal and heading towards the sink.

“Yes," Kendo nods, not at all offput by Bakugou's snark. "So I hope you two would be able to see the better in each other, even if you two don’t get along.”

And as Bakugou begins to leave the bathroom, he turns around for a quick second. “Why should I? I don’t plan on staying here longer than today,” he scoffs, before leaving.

* * *

“Um. What.”

“Yeah. Hermes is where all the unwanted kids go,” and Midoriya figures it’s not meant to be insulting or resentful, but there’s an obivous sense of self-deprecation highlighting Sero’s tone. It’s almost uncharacteristic- Sero so far has been nothing but welcoming, and clearly trying to introduce this world to him without overwhelming him.

Not like Midoriya _ minds _ \- if anything, he’s prerecording all the information in his head, allowing it to echo in his voice within his head so that he can remember it better for when he writes it down. It’s _ fascinating_, even though he plans at one point heading home (he has to, he can’t let his grades drop from school anyways), so might as well absorb everything he can within this limited period of time.

“But I don’t have to be the son of Hermes, right?”

“Yep. Kids whose gods don’t plan on paying child-support really just drop us all off here. At least Hermes, being jack-of-all-trades, doesn’t really mind us taking up all the space here,” Sero grimaces.

Literally.

He can see the smaller ones huddled on the bunk beds, a few even lounging underneath them if they’re small enough. There isn’t even enough _ floor _\- it’s all scattered with people and sleeping bags, and it might look fun at first, like those sleepovers in movies, but everyone looks positively annoyed and miserable by their lack of space and privacy.

“And it’s. I don’t know. You know, you can obviously tell some of the kids here don’t belong in Hermes: such as Iida or Tetsutetsu.” He sighs. “But the gods won’t claim them, so we’ll never know for sure.”

“I. Wow. That’s awful,” Midoriya doesn’t know how to respond to such a heavy subject, but he empathises with them. There’s an obvious sense of feeling unwanted in such a situation, and it hurts him. 

“Eventually, we’ll have to start sleeping outside,” Sero chuckles lightheartedly, scootering past their heavy conversation and gesturing towards their cabin’s interior. 

“Are you the son of Hermes?”

“Nah.” Sero shrugs. “Dad never picked up, I guess. But then again, who am I to complain when literally so many other kids have the same issue.”

Midoriya falls silent.

“Like you!” Sero beams, placing a hand onto Midoriya’s shoulder, and Midoriya smiles wainly. “Okay, anyways, you can have that spot-”

“That’s the windowsill.”

Sero shrugs. “You’ll probably fit.”

Midoriya doesn’t know if he should feel insulted or humoured by the windowsill that’s fit for half of the radius of a potted cacti.

“I don’t even think it’s wide enough for my foot.” Midoriya comments.

“Just compress yourself.”

Midoriya stares.

Then he looks back at the crusty windowsill where like five other children’s limbs are stretched underneath it. He can probably only fit his will to live on that ledge. 

“And we’ll probably get you new sneakers, though, the camp is sorta short on funds- and really any planned parenthood, but yeah your sneakers sorta stink-” Midoriya does not let him know as to why that’s so, “and after we’re playing capture the flag!”

“Capture the flag? With like. The entire camp or-”

“Yeah, the entire camp!” Sero confirms with a grin. And there’s no way. Midoriya has just walked across the campus of and he’s _ seen _ how big the property is- and yet everywhere he looked there were children; he’d guesstimate there were around a hundred-fifty kids. Maybe that’s little in terms of amount, but to play a single game? As if knowing his thoughts, Sero’s shit-eating grin that while isn’t unnerving like Bakugou’s and instead, somewhat welcoming in the sense that Sero’s honest enough to show him it despite knowing him for less than ten minutes, broadens. “Yeah. Trust me, it gets _ intense_, especially with the Ares and Athena cabin playing as team captains today. They’re both children of deities of war, but they’re like totally opposite, and that makes them _ super _against each other. And Athena's leader is Momo, she goes _hard_ in these games."

Midoriya barely heard the rest of the sentence.

All he got out of that was that there was an Ares cabin. _ There’s more than one Kacchan. _ And Midoriya _ barely _ has enough patience and shits to give for Kacchan himself, who he tolerates out of childhood sentiment and the idea that in the end, he _ does _ genuinely admire Kacchan’s core values and personality if not for all his _ bullshit, immature and questionably moral attitude _. 

“Um. Who’s in Athena?”

“Uh. Let’s see. Todoroki- you met him earlier.” Right, he was the kid that looked like he wanted to justly kill Kacchan. “Momo, and uh. I actually don’t interact with anyone else from that cabin so I can’t recall them off the top of my head.”

“And Ares?”

“I don’t even talk to them- they literally isolate themselves to each other despite being _loud_ and always very, very obvious with their presence. I don’t remember most of them.”

“How many students per cabin?” And the concept, of _ more than one Kacchan _, echoes deep in Midoriya’s empty skull.

“Uh. Depends. I mean.” Sero grimaces, gesturing towards the cramped room. “Some cabins don’t even have children, there are only maybe eight out of the twelve cabins that hold members at this moment, and they range from like. Two to over twenty children.”

And that’s curious. “How come some cabins don’t have children?”

“Because gods don’t claim them,” Sero shrugs. “Especially the big three: Poseidon, Zeus and Hades. Too dangerous to claim.” And Midoriya wonders if maybe the grand gods simply just don’t care. He has a feeling that’s the case, though, some things are probably left better unsaid. “Some of them don’t have children, such as Hera and Artemis, though, Artemis has the hunters who visit periodically.” Sero flashes a smile. “They’re pretty cool,” he compliments with a thumbs-up. “Wait till you see their leader- Midnight. She’s more like our overall aunt and actually has more of a fixation on romance than we do with her, so like, a literal paradox since she’s a hunter who swore off dating, but she brings back candy. Her group are literal duplicates of her- like Camie. They're pretty fun, we always host baking nights and one-on-one fight-to-the-deaths each time they come around."

"All in the same night?"

"- and I’ve met the American Camp Half-Blood hunters though, they’re _ so _different. Their leader, Zoe, is so serious, but she gets along so well with Midnight. One of them is a good aunt, the other one is the wine drunk aunt.”

“I see,” Midoriya blinks, quickly computing the information into his own tone to rewind. He does not actually understand, but he decides he does not really want to. “So each cabin for each god? But isn’t mytho- I mean Greek religion _ huge _? There’s gotta be way more gods, right?”

Sero’s bright and candid smile strains. “Yeah. But. The minor gods don’t get a cabin. Actually, most unclaimed kids probably belong to them, but if they were claimed, it’s not like there’s a place for them to stay here. There are too many cabins we’d have to build if that’s the case, and we just. You know. It’s not like anything could be done,” Sero shrugs mirthlessly, a wry smile on his face.

And though everything’s glorious, and terrifying at the same time, an entire realm separate from mortality that overlap at the same time and Midoriya gets to witness something as unbelievable and fantastical as this-

It’s still very human. 

Human nature has hurt. Parents abandoning children is all too human, and if humans were created in the gods’ images, if they were meant to coexist with them as an inferior being- why aren’t they being taken care of, as the weaker species?

Midoriya looks away from Sero. 

He’s not a demigod. Can’t be. But then again. It’s not like he has a dad either. Whatever. If his dad turns out to be a god- he doesn’t want him. He just wants to see his mom (and Kacchan can't even _see _his mom). 

And for a second, this entire place looks like an orphanage, being told that it’s really a happy place for kids! Advertised to the gods that it's a daycare, open 24/7, year round! Amazing alternate to abstinence or proper birth control. Just drop the side-effects here!

“Ah, I ruined the mood, didn’t I?” Sero murmurs, sheepish.

“N-no! No you didn’t!” Midoriya squawks, realising he must look utterly down. “I really like this talk, it’s interesting, and I brought it up anyways!” He doesn’t want Sero’s feelings hurt, and besides, Sero’s like his _ only _friend next to Kacchan, who probably doesn’t want to see him. (At this point, Midoriya is also faintly reminded about the fact that there are now replicates of Kacchans existing all in the same place, and he attempts to block that out of his mind.)

“So! Captured the flag!” Midoriya clears his throat, attempting to rerail the conversation. “Sounds like fun!”

“Yeah! And this time Recovery Girl promised to heal everyone this time, no matter how annoyed she gets!” Sero laughs. Midoriya’s smile freezes. _ HelLo? _“Anyways, I’ll probably get you better suited clothes. Yours kinda look too small on you. By the way, interesting fashion choice-”

“Aizawa-sensei picked them out for me.”

“I can tell- Rainbow Dash is his and Eri’s favourite.” Midoriya does not ask how Sero knows the character on the extremely tight shirt on him right now. “I think that’s meant to be Eri’s clothes for when she grows up.”

And Midoriya doesn’t know who Eri is, but AppleJack is best girl, and he’ll fight her over it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!! asjdfkdaslf sorry if this chatper was mostly dialogue, i did try to cut most of it out.
> 
> okay next chapter will probably include capture the flag, meeting other campers properly, and might include the prophesy thing idek  
\--------------------------------------------------------  
idk how this happened but suddenly there are multiple camp-halfbloods like walmart branches. it's just a lot of work to randomly place them in america while they're all japanese, ig, so i included that american camps exist too bc then like. it doesn't make sense if they're all japanese, don't speak english and follow japanese culture but like. live exclusively in america, bc then where are all the english kids bc obviously in america there'd be english-speaking demigods, so i made camp half blood exist to solve that problem and explain why there aren't any english-speakers in this camp.


	3. midoriya would listen to lofi.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1\. bakugou  
2\. im so invested in suzaku's character like he's one of those oc's i made and im accidentally making them too like. character character. sorta like dAv e  
3\. aizawa is >:v  
4\. midoriya: oops guess this is happening right now.  
5\. hellhound
> 
> 6\. sen is literally internally suffering like canonly he isn't even like this but i just forced him into a corner and he evolved into a literal aizawa
> 
> 7\. midoriya midoriya me: realises midoriya's probably the mc of this story too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH GeEZ UH i HIghKEy FORGOt REI WAS TODOROKI"S MOM"S NAME BRO i FORGOT REI TODOROKI WAS AN ACTUAL CHARACTER
> 
> rei is an oc i was reading detective conan right before it and i just stole one of hte character's name FUCK
> 
> whatever i'm going to just replace rei's name wtih smth else to avoid confusion GJKLSDJSA I CANT BELIEVE I LITERALLY FORGOT REI WAS A REAL CHARACTER
> 
> i'm changing it to rin. idek if rin is a female gender name i'm rolling with it.

Bakugou doesn’t want to sit with the rest of the Ares children. Despite the resolution of his spat with Suzaku, Suzaku still doesn’t accept him as a member: just someone suitable to be one. If anything, he probably doesn’t _ like _Bakugou, solely because Bakugou took a jab at Ares’ name.

To be fair: Ares is a shit father.

He also does not want to sit with frankly _ anyone_. He doesn’t want to be a part of this camp. He wants to find his mom, and Aizawa didn't even _ tell _ him how to do that. He just gave him an unreadable expression when Bakugou choked out his will. The medical wing, as an interesting side note, also now has a hole in one of the dresser tables with a lamp stuck halfway through it. Instructions on how to solve Bakugou's problem of missing a wholeass mother went unclear, and so now, the dresser coincidentally and conspicuously has a lamp through it.

Either way, without an idea on how to go fetch his damn ma, he basically has to stay here a bit longer. Whatever. He'll eat dinner or whatever the fuck and then in the morning, he'll piss in Aizawa's cereal and really demand for an answer.

Glancing around the outdoor tables where everyone's already beginning to seat himself, he wanders around. He'll probably locate fucking Deku. Because there’s no way Deku made friends, and Bakugou might as well sit with someone he _ knows _because Deku is familiar even though he’s a familiar _annoyance_-

Bakugou pauses, hearing a loud and irritating laugh that he knew since childhood. He looks to the right. 

Midoriya made friends.

He recognises a few of them from earlier, suffocating him while in the medic wing.

Whatever. It's not like Bakugou wants to sit with him.

And it's not like they're friends- Bakugou made that very clear, and he's going to take responsibility over his own actions: he was the one who didn't want Midoriya around. It's only fair if Midoriya doesn't want him around. If anything, he _ wants _ that. 

He'll just sit alone. _ Not _ like a loser. Bakugou isn’t a loser, and he knows that, and he’s never felt self-conscious before. And if anyone misinterprets him attempting to seat himself at the end of some table or even better, find an entirely empty table, that’s their fucking fault. 

Everyone appears to be grouped by cabin, but, if Midoriya is sitting with that ragtag group who while earlier introducing themselves were definitely not from the same god, then it should be fine if he chooses wherever.

He sits down, ready to just brace the entire awkward half hour of dinner sitting alone, when he feels his eardrums invert at the sound of clopping.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“I think here we believe in Greek gods, not Jesus Christ.”

And he said that out loud. Nice.

“What do you want.”

“Maybe an apology because none of us can remove the lamp from the table.” Aizawa says simply, standing at the end of the table right in front of Bakugou Bakugou cringes. “Stop it.” Bakugou cringes harder. “How did you even manage to do that? Sheer willpower does not suddenly displace matter like wood-”

Bakugou shrugs. “I don’t know." He admits casually. Aizawa fixes a glare onto him. And Bakugou’s ready to snark back a ‘what-are-you-even-doing-here’, before hesitating. Aizawa isn’t _ bad_. And his mom liked him, so that must mean something.

Then again, she chose to date Satoshi, so that says a lot about her judgment of character. Even though dating Satoshi seems way out of left field and utterly unexplainable.

“Hey. Aizawa?” Aizawa narrows his head, recoiling sharply, his head retracting into a double-chin. “Stop looking at me like that, I'm trying to ask a question!” Aizawa in fact, does not stop looking like he's constipated. “You were friends with my mom?”

And then, Aizawa’s glower dissipates, and Bakugou knots his lips into a scowl. He hates that. He doesn’t know if it’s pity or not- Aizawa doesn’t seem the type to do excessive pitying in the first place, but he doesn’t _ like _that his attitude changed because Bakugou brought up his mom. Whatever. He said so himself- she’s not dead, so there’s nothing to cry about. 

“Do you know why mom married Satoshi? Do you even _ know _Satoshi-”

“She married him because of his questionable stench," he answers too bluntly for Bakugou's liking.

“I.” Bakugou stares. He does not know how to respond. Bakugou _ always _knows how to respond. “...Is this a kink?”

“Stop saying stupid things,” is Aizawa's first answer, and Bakugou wants to sock him in the sternum. “She thought his alcohol stench could mask the smell of a demigod. It worked for a while- but as you grew older, clearly that strategy wasn’t good enough.”

Bakugou has to take a second. He doesn’t want to leave Aizawa ‘read 6:05pm’ irl, but he also doesn’t know what to say to that. “You’re telling me that Satoshi’s smell of cabbage boiled in sugar molecules confused with their own identity _ is strong enough to stop monsters_.”

“Essentially.”

Bakugou wonders if that implies _he_ smells bad. Or if demigods have the stench of meat or some shit for monsters.

"What do we smell like monsters?"

Aizawa looks at him with obvious judgment, but Bakugou thinks his question's quite valid. "I don't know? Probably like meat? You smell like hotel shampoo to me. I'm guessing you used the ones we hand out for free?" Bakugou grimaces, and nods.

"Hotel shampoo is one of those things that has an indescribable scent but somehow perfectly describes things," Bakugou says, feeling an odd sense of admiration for Aizawa's creativity, despite feeling vaguely insulted.

"It holds the same meaning as someone washing their hair with bar soap," Aizawa nods. "But even now, despite smelling like off-brand Head and Shoulders."

"Bitch I might smell like it but you look like you use two-and-one shampoo with your ripoff Harry Style haircut-"

"I can detect the smell of expired cheese and alcohol on you- Satoshi really was doing the most out there by doing the least."

“Damn.” And Bakugou thought Satoshi was useless. “I don’t know how I feel about that,” and is. Is this _admiration_? Disgruntled admiration because that's really some transcendental shit? And Bakugou’s about to say more, when the sudden _ mob _of students rising from their seats and walking towards a couple tables in the middle piled high with food distracts him from doing so.

And the food smells good- he’s been aware of that the moment he walked near the outdoor cafeteria.

But Bakugou also knows that it could be simply because his senses were heightened by the consistent lack of meals since someone kept on spending his mom’s funds on gambling chips and beer, and also because for the past two years Bakugou’s caloric intake was mostly from strawberry flavoured applesauce since once again, their finances weren’t really invested in the best places.

He pointedly ignores how technically, while eating strawberry flavoured applesauce was due to desperate measures, _liking it_ and then eating forty cups of it was a conscious choice not influenced by external variables.

“You’re not getting food?”

“I’ll wait,” Bakugou shrugs. He also doesn’t want to make himself feel welcomed here. He doesn’t want to enjoy anything. He _ wants _to hate everything here. “What are they doing?” Bakugou murmurs, gesturing towards the line of kids who already have plates stacked with shit, trotting up to one of the many open flames set near the exterior of the cafeteria.

“Sacrificing the best part of their plate to their god. Some utter a prayer for their parents, too.” Aizawa explains.

Bakugou stays silent. “What if we don’t do that?”

“You have to.”

“But if we don’t?”

Aizawa doesn’t respond.

And he probably doesn’t expect Bakugou to elaborate, and to be fucking fair: Bakugou didn’t either. “Like. Why should I? What has he ever done for me? He should take responsibility for my existence! Instead he left me with my mom and. And. Maybe. Maybe my existence is my own failure but how could he? Leaving me behind with a mortal, knowing what trouble I could cause especially with _ his _ personality genes,” Bakugou spits, something bitter rattling the wetness clogging his throat. “It’s. My mom had to date _ Satoshi _ for my sake.” And Bakugou loves himself, but “why did he have to have me if he _knew_ mortals couldn't take care of me? That's unfair to both the mortals _and _to me!” He hisses, something angry clawing at his lungs and breaking the ends of his words. “Why do gods do this to people, and why do they do it to their children?” And he knows about the Hermes cabin, about the designated floor that’s meant for all the children who never got claimed by their parents.

Aizawa remains mute. And Bakugou turns to him, wanting to demand an answer out, force him to so that he can choke on shame because if the gods don’t care then Bakugou wants _ someone to_, even if expressed in the vilest way possible-

“The gods were never described as kind, Bakugou. History is quite candid about it, as well.” Aizawa says finally, emotionless. And that's it, isn't it? There's nothing to refute, nothing to build off of that: that's the simple truth and they can't deny or change it because it's a universal fucking _ fact _ and they’re not the ones who can change that. "We were built in the gods' image. There's a reason why the gods are as human as we are, despite being deities."

"Humanity tends to be better than them from what I'm seeing," Bakugou spits.

Aizawa doesn't say anything on that matter, but Bakugou doesn't feel like he won any argument- if anything, it's as if Aizawa's purposefully quiet because he knows Bakugou is venting, not because he's agreeing with him. 

“I’m not offering food to Ares. Fuck him.” And Ares may have injected nitroglycerin straight into his veins, and maybe Ares saved his damn ass, but that same ass was abandoned by him. This ass was damn well in his custody, and if he took better care of his child and bothered to at least _ try, _ then none of this would even be an issue. 

“The gods won’t be happy about that.”

“Then I won’t eat.” 

Aizawa purses his lips. “Don’t be stubborn. Grab food, you have to eat. And at the very least, offer food without a prayer.”

Bakugou hates being told what to do.

He hates being supervised, hates being looked after, hates being seen as something someone can fix for the better. But he doesn’t want Aizawa to go. They’re not friends, and he doesn’t give a shit about Aizawa. But Aizawa _ knew _his mom. He was friends with her. That had to mean something.

So he sways onto his feet, and slowly walks over to the table.

Ares wants acknowledgment?

Fine. Bakugou can do that.

* * *

“Ah, this kid, look, he’s given me an entire steak!” Squeals Aphrodite. "Aoyama, a sweet child."

"But of course, my children are _smart_," Athena states haughtily. "That is why Iida offered food with genuine meaning and historical acknowledgment towards my achievements and political capabilities- he offered an entire platter of olives."

"As if that's worth bragging about- a plate of plants," chokes Hephaestus. "Meanwhile Mei has sent a variety of foods, see, ranging from pastries to meat!" Right after that, another plate stacked with just a diverse selection of meat appears. "Kirishima! One of my favourites. A sweet boy."

Ares sniffs haughtily.

Ares stares at the podium where his offerings are stacked up from his children, burned like incense that sweetens the atmosphere.

Then he sees a leek show up, before catching on fire.

Ares sits there, shrouded by a cloud that smells like onions, and wonders what compelled him to save Bakugou Katsuki’s ungrateful ass. 

* * *

“Capture the flag? Yeah, I know what the fuck I'm doing."

To the side, Uraraka appears majorly unconvinced.

Midoriya decides he doesn’t blame her.

“You know, Kaminari would’ve liked you,” Sero, who’s strapped and with the rest of his cabin, sided with Ares, is the only one who appears remotely pleased by Bakugou’s Bakugouness. 

“Don’t compare me to an extra,” Bakugou snarls, grabbing a steel sword (and Midoriya has a slight idea that maybe, children with the hyperactivity of snorting crushed Smarties should not be around sharp objects, especially when it comes to Bakugou). And Midoriya’s prepared to reflexively chide him to apologise without really expecting anything more than a biting remark, but pauses, his eyes clapping onto Sero.

It’s not just hurt flashing over Sero’s expression: it’s something pained and resentful. 

Midoriya knots his lips.

This Kaminari must be a sore spot.

To the side, Uraraka had froze, something awful and angry stirring in her bright countenance. 

“Kacchan,” Midoriya hisses lowly, but Bakugou appears unaware of the effects his typical remark made, and is instead adjusting the straps of his breastplate. “I-”

“Shut _ up _.”

“Anyways,” Suzaku begins coldly from where he’s walking up. Midoriya didn’t have to ask the team leader what cabin he was from- Midoriya’s quite familiar with the homicidal expression he’s wearing to figure it out on his own. “Newcomers-” his eyes specifically dart to Midoriya and Bakugou, and Midoriya flinches. “Guard the back lake.”

And Midoriya closes his eyes, repressing any sense of embarrassment for Bakugou’s guaranteed outburst, since earlier, Momo had given them a vague tour of the landscape they play on (which is _ massive _\- big enough for thirty centaurs to play capture the flag on without issues), and knows that the river is at the border of their team’s territory: one that no one will bother to cross.

However, he hears nothing, and looks over to see Bakugou simply grimacing at the rusty helmet Suzaku shoved into his arms. Grateful if not slightly offed by Bakugou’s compliant behaviour (he supposes his childhood friend has grew from his immature self despite retaining his same, ‘i’m-going-to-inject-barbecue-sauce-into-your-skin-like-the-pig-you-are’ energy), he begins to slip on the chestplate Uraraka earlier picked for him.

_ It’s heavy_. _ Super _heavy. His posture crumpling from the shock of the weight, he takes a second to adjust. To the side, he hears Bakugou snort, clearly mocking him. Midoriya ignores him, though he sees the obvious responsive disdain in Uraraka’s gaze as she walks forward, and begins to help him yank the straps into place. Midoriya smiles gratefully. 

“Anyways, Athena’s cabin definitely has a strategy for us- they’ll probably avoid the river, since the current’s too strong for people to bother crossing, even if they assume we’ll place the less experienced over in that region,” Suzaku informs, and Midoriya grimaces as he sees Bakugou’s face darken at the obvious leer in his tone. “Get into positions, we have five minutes before the horn sounds.”

Midoriya has to run, his armour dragging down on him, his dull _ (but very real oh my god) _ sword cutting into the dirt behind him, lagging in his clammy grip. 

Bakugou on the other hand, seems to take things in stride, despite his build being one of a deprived teenager, and he’s handling his gear with ease, even though the armour is clearly oversized for his build.

And Midoriya thinks about how Uraraka handles herself fine even though all secondhand armour seemed unsuited for her, and urges himself to catch up with Bakugou, who if anything, obviously does not want to be seen walking with him.

Clicking his tongue, Midoriya simply resigns to showing up at the river a bit later than Bakugou, who’s standing there, bored.

The moment he keeps a relatively safe distance away from Bakugou, he hears a horn blow, signaling the start of the game, and distant shouts and screams of other children.

They’re alone.

“This is weird.” Midoriya states.

And he expects Bakugou to push him into the river and probably hold his head under for a minute or so, but instead, Bakugou answers with a nod. “This is so fucking weird,” he echoes, and Midoriya smiles slightly. “Like. This game seems fine, whatever-” and of course using _ real weapons _ isn’t weird to him, “but. What the fuck.”

“Yeah I was not expecting everything that happened to have happened.” Midoriya suddenly feels relieved. He likes the people here, they’re all so welcoming and mostly nice, but _ they're so experienced _ and in tune; they don’t have a life outside of this one, nor do they want one. But Midoriya does: he’s an outsider. His life did not belong here just hours ago, and it still doesn’t. He still has a mother at home who’s probably not okay, and his intestines squirm at the idea of his mom’s worry.

He’s not one of them, and at the very least, Bakugou can understand that even though Bakugou actually would benefit staying here, and doesn’t have anywhere to go. 

“Life won’t ever be the same now.”

“Don’t know if I like it that way or not,” Bakugou then sharply spits into the dirt next to him.

“Kacchan. That’s littering.”

_ “Shut up_, you’re the litter here.” Then, he whips to him. “That is _ not _ littering. What bullshit is that? My spit will fertilise the soil okay-”

And Midoriya wants to take a second longer to really decide if this would be considered friendly fire or Bakugou’s warning before he crushes his skull like a water chestnut-

When the sound of footsteps alert him, and he flinches, turning around. Bakugou to the side, lifts his sword.

Midoriya stares at the metal in the crooked grasp, and _ right_, Bakugou for all his strength and terrifying willpower, reasonably would not know how to properly use a sword. Midoriya slowly rounds to the source of the noise, being a small group of children all confidently carrying their own preferred weapons.

Great, they’re dead.

“Ha. Think you’re hot shit, for killing the Minotaur?” Shouts the boy at the front of the group. Midoriya stares, _ is he serious _? He glances at Bakugou, who isn’t even deterred by the unexpected leer, and just narrows his eyes.

“Is _ that _ why you don’t like me?” Bakugou snorts.

“We were training, waited _ months _ to prepare a fraction of us to go kill the Minotaur, and then you killshot him due to sheer luck-”

Midoriya believes that Bakugou’s hands basically personifying mobile minefields really isn’t up to luck, but okay.

“And then you bring in a _ mortal _-” He gestures towards Midoriya, and Midoriya, unimpressed, stares, absolutely nothingness engulfing his current will to live.

This is bullcrap.

“This is bullshit,” Bakugou rephrases Midoriya's thought, somehow, vibrating at the same wavelength Midoriya is currently forced to surf on. “If you suck, how’s that my fault? Just get better.” Then, with zero tact, adds on: “weedwhacker dicks.”

“_Kacchan _-”

"Hey, you!" Bakugou suddenly gestures at one of the boys hanging out near the back. "You're from the medic wing. Blonde bitch!"

At this, the boy that Midoriya can't really identify due to his clunky helmet, bares his teeth, screaming, “_k__ill him _-”

Midoriya hesitates, faltering at his scornful tone, whipping around. “Wait, _ kill _? Isn’t this a game-”

“Come at me, fuckers! I’ll use your femur as a battering rod-”

“_Sorry, _ did you just say you’d _ kill _ him-” Midoriya squeaks, repressing a cringe at the way the five children are rushing towards them, all seemingly aiming specifically at Bakugou. At this moment, Midoriya has a faint recollection of last year, back when Bakugou had no choice but to enroll in his school because he got kicked out of all the other surrounding districts, and ended up dumped once more because he accidentally force fed a drug dealer oil paint.

Midoriya decides he feels absolutely fine letting Bakugou handle five kids at once.

That is, until he thinks of the consequences of his actions. And at that, he feels a sudden, churning sensation salt his large intestine with indignation, as he realises Bakugou expects him to play into the role as a coward, yet would be hyperactively insulted if Midoriya tried to step in.

Really: Bakugou was always indecisive, despite how firm he was in his personal beliefs. He liked neither this nor that- never satisfied with one’s response if he wasn’t satisfied with the person themselves.

Well. 

Midoriya thinks those kids were being unfair, anyways. 

He lifts up what’s essentially an oversized metal ruler, and regretfully, wallops it down on the metal back of one of the kids surrounding Bakugou, who’s currently attempting to bite through a kid’s padded shoulder.

It’s terrifying that somehow, Bakugou’s succeeding.

“Oi, what the _ fuck _-” Snarls the kid that Midoriya reluctantly bludgeoned in the spine. “Twerp? Looking like you want to piss yourself-”

_ And oh my god. _ See, Midoriya is a rather forgiving person who takes his graces in tow.

Being made fun of for peeing himself is a joke made much too early, even though it’s not like the boy would’ve known that.

Midoriya violently slams his dull blade against the boy’s kneecaps, watching as he topples with a shriek. “Listen!” Midoriya says sharply. “You have no right to make fun of Kacchan the way you do-” _or me._

“_Kacchan _? What the fuck sorta name is-”

“DEKU I SWEAR TO GOD-”

“Out of what? Jealousy? Kacchan’s right! Don’t be mad at him or me because we happened to get there first!” And Midoriya’s more enraged by the lack of sympathy, because they should’ve _ seen _ how Bakugou lost his mom, how his mom cryptically kinda died right in front of him, and all they can focus on is the rage within them? “You think we _ wanted _ to deal with a monster-” And Midoriya, apologetically but ruthlessly begins to punctuate his words with a resounding slap of his blade against the boy’s fallen but well-defended figure, who’s struggling to sit upright due to his heavy chestplate. “Go ahead! Take on the Minotaur! No one was stopping you! Only yourselves-” and he’s shouting, and Midoriya’s just _ tired _ and he’s angry and he knows he has no right to feel this way especially when Bakugou literally just _ lost _ his mom (and Midoriya might’ve always seen her as such a loving and close auntie, but the loss and pain knotting his intestines can’t be comparable to what Bakugou must be feeling-), but he’s _ homesick _. 

His mom must be worried.

And he strikes hard enough that the dull blade somehow dents the scratched armour of the boy, who flinches, hard. 

“And if you’re the only person who’s stopping yourself from fighting the Minotaur, then that’s a _ you _ problem. You’re not weak, for sure-” he doesn’t want to come off unreasonably mean, “but you can’t be strong if you’re blaming other people for _ your _ problem!” And he stares furiously at the boy limp on the ground, who appears almost unworldly from the contortion of his expression, the way the creases carved into a frown are deep enough to cast a shadow in every crevice.

Then, the disturbing countenance flattens, ironing out into something even more terrifying.

Fear.

Midoriya pauses.

“What?” Midoriya begins, voice hushed and a contrasting pitch from his earlier timbre. “I’m. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to take my frustrations out on you-” but he stops, realising that the boy’s not seeing him anymore but rather behind him and-

Midoriya whirls around, and it’s the smell that hits him first, not the sight.

The monstrously giant creature’s muscled build comes second, after its breath.

Midoriya gags, and takes a step back, nearly tripping over the fallen boy. 

Oh God. Gods? Gods.

“Kacchan,” he wheezes, and glances over, to see Bakugou encasing another kid in a headlock, currently on the ground with four more children who are still pinning him down, all of them now paralysed.

Midoriya’s eyes avert shakily, almost wobbling in their sockets as they dart back to what’s in front of him.

The dog snorts.

“What the _ fuck _ is that,” Bakugou hisses, his voice characteristically sharp despite its unnaturally low volume.

“A dog?” Midoriya answers.

_ "Are you stupid." _

Almost as if understanding him, the dog that’s probably the size of third-grade Kacchan’s overwhelming ego rears up, black gums rippling backwards to reveal rows of teeth. The cavity of his mouth is an entire cave that only goes down, the entrance decorated with yellowed stalactites, coated in drool that dribbles downwards to a bottom row of equally long pillars.

“A _ big _ dog?” Midoriya guesses again to no one in particular.

“Deku, before you die, I'm going to tell you this. You stupid teethboy, if that thing's a dog, I hope he rips you a part like a chew toy.” Bakugou snarls from where he’s still on the ground. Then, gracefully, he tacks on: "bitch."

"You already called me that, Kacchan."

“That’s a hellhound. But it’s. _ Big_,” whispers the boy sitting on Bakugou’s arm. 

"You," Bakugou shakes the boy, whose purple hair untangles from its bands. "You're not a dumbshit, right? Heard you spouting instructions to your dipshit teammates and actually having half a cheese slice of a mind."

"...Sure?"

"What the hell do we do in this situation?"

"Run."

Bakugou stares at him with an expression as terrifyingly still as the hell hound's wearing right now.

"I will neuter you." Midoriya, digesting Bakugou's words, nearly gets whiplash from his learnt sense of danger being confused as to what's really the threat here. "You say that bullshit answer again, and I'll make sure you'll be the one running."

"Hm. Okay. Cool. Giant slime monster, giant bullman, giant dog, sure we're just not in Texas?" Midoriya laughs, sounding like he deepthroated a nail clipper.

He takes a hesitant step back, hoping that the boy behind him gets onto his feet _ quick _ . “What the _ fuck_,” echoes Bakugou from the floor. "Is it actually going to attack?"

"No, Kacchan, it's going to try and play fetch with me-" and Midoriya's rambling, voice pitching hysterically.

"He's going to vore you in one go," says a purple-haired boy, who probably should never be introduced into society, staring at the mutt with an unhinged jaw, the grip on his spear weak and limp.

“G-get off of me! Get off or you stop the hound yourself you goddamn thumb-” and Bakugou's snarl is frantic, anxious, and grating with almost a shrieking pitch and Midoriya takes a second to realise that Bakugou’s terror is for _ him, _which would be vaguely touching if he wasn't going to die at this moment, and Midoriya watches how the dog’s ear flicks, almost irritated, before lunging forward. And Midoriya can’t help it but he instinctively screams, collapsing as a terrifying weight crunches against his ribcage, and _ oh my god he’s falling _ but the pain wracking through his body is great enough that he can’t help but writhe while still in air, nothing supporting his body-

And Midoriya is not strong. He’s weak. He knows that.

He’s going to die and he _ knows _ it and his mom would never know and Midoriya’s _ sobbing _ because he can’t help himself and he knows he shouldn’t and that he has way more important things such as a giant _dog_, but he’s just Deku, who’s curling in on himself as he lets everyone walk over him _ but how could they expect him to not _ when everyone’s so much stronger and-

Midoriya coughs, his vision streaks of colours and he blinks the water away, his eyes landing on his ex-childhood friend that he never really got to call friend now-

And Kacchan's right there, screaming, his eyes quivering and hands shaking as he raises a blade but it’s _ useless _ and how did he ever think Kacchan was scary? Or maybe he never did, he always saw Bakugou for who he was: a child with tantrums and an inflated ego who never knew his limits (and Midoriya would always want the best for him even if he wants Bakugou to _ realise _ how awful he was when he self-reflects, but he always wanted him to be happy and he knew he would never be happy if he wasn’t aware of his)-

Midoriya doesn't know if he's crying from the pain, inevitable foreshadowing of painfully dying, how he's never going to understand the world and he's been just introduced to something more than what he knew before, or because he ultimately misses Kacchan as a friend and he wishes things were different-

“_DEKU STOP THINKING! _ If you _ fucking _ die because of a steroid-abusing Clifford, I will literally sell your useless organs in the black market and even the most desperate surgery patient wouldn't want your fucking bean-ass kidney-”

And there’s something objectively more terrifying of Bakugou in general, than the hellhound above him, and Midoriya flinches, shutting his eyes at the sight of the dog above him and he can _feel_ the dog attempting to claw through his armour that his nails are latching into, unable to effectively tear it off-

_"DEKU OPEN YOUR EYES DUMBASS, DO SOMETHING-" _

And Bakugou never exercised consideration of others. Phrasing it so poorly that it sounds like he's blaming this on Midoriya. Of course he can't understand that Midoriya _can't_ do anything even though he always speaks like he can't. Bakugou of course wouldn't understand why Midoriya can't do things he can't, can't be as strong, can't _do_ as much as he could-

Midoriya breathes, a wet sob clogging the bottom of his throat.

And Midoriya can't afford to be irrationally angry at Bakugou _now:_ he has more things to worry about he-

forces his eyes open.

And then nearly cries some more as he feels a sharp stab right in his eye. His right eye fluttering manically, twitching as it absorbs something stinging and awful. A cold sensation ices his bruised tailbone as he realises with vomit rising up his crushed throat that _ oh my god _ the dog’s drool literally just dipped into his eyes like barbecue sauce, like DIY contact solution-

His screams pitch louder at that thought, laughter and fear melding into a rod that jams through his body and crushes his windpipes with pressure, and he wasn’t even aware he was screaming. He twitches, his spinal chord jangled and knotted at that mouvement and _ the dog’s paw is still on me Jesus- haha is Jesus even real? Zeus? Who the heck do I even _ _beg_ _to_ _ \- _

He glances downwards, and straight up, no cap, he nearly blacks out.

His armour is partially ripped off, and there are claws burrowed deep in the clunky metal. Mildly, he thinks, _ oh no. _ He faintly wonders how much longer it's going to hold up (and he recalls the terrifying visual of being able to _ dent _ the other boy’s armour, and Bakugou somehow biting through that kid’s defended shoulder like it was a can of Redbull, and Midoriya nearly collapses right there).

He squirms. Because_ screw this_. He just learned too much, he didn’t get enough _ time _ to realise what he’s going to do in this world, with this knowledge of this world, of _ what’ll happen to Kacchan and Bakugou-san and Mom _and he wants to live he wants to know more about the world he wants to be able to explore and be brave and be better-

With terrifying adrenaline, trepidation already lost within the haywire of nerves ripping through his body as pain bleeds in with mental fear dissecting his brain into disorientated sections (and he cannot process thoughts, he just knows he has to escape), he pulls. He dislocates his nerves, his bones, his fear, as he wrenches himself out from under the dog’s paw-

With a drunken right eye, metal and carcasses invading his nostrils, he pushes himself aside and falls for the last time.

He feels himself crumple, toppling over an elevated ledge and landing hard against a rocky surface, as something sploshy and wet and heavy seeps into his clothes. With a muddled brain, he realises he must’ve fallen into the river. There’s screaming. He opens his eyes, and nearly cries as water invades them with dirt and debris.

He pauses.

And he can feel water in his ears, stirring together all the different screams and various shouts. He sits upright, shaking his head, ignoring how it’s throbbing with each act because ew, the water’s _ cold _-

He takes a second to realise what’s wrong. For one, he's not in crippling pain for sitting upright. He’s okay. He glances downwards, squinting in the evening light, his right eye flipping out and cussing, but he seems okay. Then again, he was mostly just in a panic underneath the dog’s weight, and he’s still struggling to breathe, and it feels like something’s crunching his lungs like Wall-E condensing metal into a tight cube. He realises he _ has _ to rip off his armour: it’s _ too heavy_. He’s struggling, fumbling with wobbly hands to unstrap it, but when he finally does, the jagged edges of the ripped metal catch onto his _ My Little Pony _ shirt and thin skin.

His bones don't seem to hurt as much as he thought it did. Before, he literally felt like Flat Stanley, but in live action. Other than his chest, everything seems fine. He takes another look downwards. There, on his stomach, are shallow lacerations from the claws but _ he was protected _ enough _ by that flimsy sheet of car metal that felt like a hundred pounds_, enough that he did not instantly die the moment he was jumped.

He watches water wash red from his stomach, and eventually the water turns clear.

He takes a second. Then another second. What the _ heck _ is this poetic bullshit.

Hesitantly, afraid maybe he’s wrong, he slowly pinches his stomach. No pain. 

_ And this is too much to process_. He collapses backwards, his entire body submerged in water once more, because _ what_. And maybe he’s going to drown here, who knows, it’d make much more sense, until he hears a distant shout, almost a gurgle, something along the lines about ‘Deku’, and _ it must be Kacchan _-

He gasps, and he doesn’t even think about breathing but he _ is_, despite being under water; but that’s not important because Bakugou is calling for him-

He clambers out of the gushing river, and with two, clear and cold eyes (and wasn’t one of them hurting? He can’t even remember. Maybe he made it up in the midst of unzipped nerves), he sees the wolf (hellhound?) facing him, only obstructed from killing Midoriya because Bakugou and two other kids that were fighting with him earlier, are barely distracting it with their swords that don’t even seem to cut its pelt.

“DEKU! RUn you fucking _ dumbass _ bitchboy?” And it sounds like Bakugou is challenging Midoriya's entire existence.

“Why’d you say it like a question?”

“_Deku I am a bit busy right now, in fact, too busy for your inquiry BS. Go get help, or so god help me, I’ll squeeze your neck as tight as this man’s inverted asshole _-”

The boy next to Bakugou looks viscerally disturbed. “Wait. Do you mean _ my _ asshole?” Squeaks the rather vertically challenged boy, who looks as if he should not be here right now.

And Midoriya glances around them, and they’re _ alone_. There’s no one around them, everyone else probably would hear their screams as part of the game, and no one’s going to come through the back. There are less kids, too. Some of them must've ran- not like Midoriya blames them. 

"I can't go."

"Deku." And Bakugou's tone is terrifyingly calm, the same voice he used to make when Midoriya didn't let him win on Super Smash Bros. "If you try and pull some self-righteous _bullshit_, playing hero, remember. Your intentions, genuine or not, _are stupid._" And for good measure: "you bitch." Midoriya's pretty sure Bakugou said that too many times in just this hour. "If you choose not to listen and go get help because _you _cannot do anything, and frankly, _we_ cannot do anything, I will personally tattoo the underside of your tongue with this sword, using this fleamarket's slobber as my personalised ink and fill each slit with PopRocks."

And really, Midoriya understands at least 1/3 of his logic, but he frankly can't follow it. If he leaves, there’ll be a consistent build of anxiety over whether or not this group of three will be okay. Group of three, one of them being Kacchan who’s _ new _ to all of this, and all three of them looking unprepared to handle a giant mutt. All three of them could probably _ die, _and honestly, probably will.

But they will certainly die if Midoriya doesn't go get help.

“Where are the others?” Midoriya asks, watching as the hellhound bounds forward, attempting to curbstomp the purple-haired boy, howling now.

“I don’t _ know _ ,” sobs another kid who’s shakily gripping a dagger. “We can’t just leave, it’ll run rampant-” the girl pauses. “It’s after _ you_, why is it only looking at you? Are you sure you’re a mortal?”

“Listen,” Midoriya does not like the accusatory panic in the girl’s timbre. “I don’t know, okay. I do not know.” And he sees the hellhound, and how it _ rears_, clearly tired of the three pests who are nothing more than skeeters to him, raising a paw and _oh_ Midoriya already _knows_ it's going to swipe and all of the children's spines will topple like Jenga pieces-

The girl’s sobbing, staring at the claw and Midoriya has an unwarranted and explicit image of the hooked nails the size of screwdrivers cleanly sweeping her head off-

Almost instinctively, responding to the tidal wave of stomach acid and stony fear in the pits of his gut, cramping his entire digestive system, he feels the water behind him respond. He just knows it is, his nerves, fear, and probably entire BS concussion is telling him this.

The river water behind him takes pity on his inexperience, and Midoriya knows he’s being sympathised with.

_ Please._

And the water stirs, straining hard against its own cohesion, before jetting upwards and crashing _ hard _ against the dog, and he hears screams, but they’re not as loud as the roar of the water compressing against his skull, shattering his mind into pieces.

* * *

Bakugou has no idea what’s happening right now.

“Is this happening?” says the boy next to him, who points at fucking _ Deku _ , standing there almost listless, eyes wide and unblinking like the weirdo he is, with water behind him doing weird _ Avatar _ bullshit and rhythmic gymnasticking its way over to the dog who’s now trying to fight with _ water _. 

“I mean.” Bakugou pauses, and tilts his head, lowering his stupid sword. “He kinda _ always _ has that look?" He squints. "Yeah. But he's usually muttering somethin' though."

The girl, sputtering and half drowned, now holding a rather indignant fish, looks mortally terrified, being both crushed by a buckling dog and a flow of water.

“Hey, bitch,” Bakugou snarls, and the girl simpers. “Put the damn fish back. This ain't a free capitalist market.” He orders, and the fish delocates its spine in her terrifyingly white grip. 

She drops the fish, and it washes away with the sentient water that’s now continuously beating the dog down.

“I. What.” Stammers the male extra.

“What?” Bakugou whines, mockingly, and the boy stares at him.

“How can you be the way you are at a time like this?” He snaps, his arms floundering.

“I mean.” Bakugou shrugs. “This ‘time’ you are speaking of, has been more than forty-eight hours for me, so just adapt, pussy.”

The boy is still staring at him, but now, the darks of his eyes are spazzing out.

“Stop it.” Bakugou then clocks him in the head, and he groans, yelping as well. “Can’t believe it’s fuckin’ Deku who’s standing up.” He knew life was literally being uprooted since like, two days ago, but for Deku to suddenly decide one day to stop following physics? The fact that it’s _ Deku _ is what makes it extremely unbelievable. “I mean. Monsters exist, giant dogs the size of a small house just run around, why _ not _ controllable water?”

“Because that’s not supposed to happen! Unless he's the son of-” And the boy’s eyes are large, mirrors that reflect Bakugou’s image.

"Mineta, you're not saying what I think you are-" gapes the girl. 

Bakugou, completely out of the loop, is ultimately unimpressed and rather pissed.

The boy doesn’t continue, and instead, his mouth flubbers uselessly with no sound. “Because what?” Bakugou snaps impatiently. “Don’t tell me y’all don’t have some bullshit, OP superpower. Lemme guess, Ares gives all kids the power of explosives or fire, and every descendant of a god has control over an element or power with questionable guidelines that are vague enough to save us at the last minute like a bad movie trope-”

“No! None of us can do that! Unless you're a descendent from the Big Three, we’re just. We’re just _ kids _ ! Demigods, maybe more resilient and mentally wired for combat, but we. We’re still very much human, we don’t just _ have _ inherent powers!” Squeaks this Mineta. “We get powers through objects or something. We can’t. We can’t do _ that!” _ He gestures wildly at Deku.

Bakugou pauses. “Ares kids aren’t supposed to have something like that?” 

“No! Do _ you _ have powers?” Mineta sneers. “Thought so! This. He has to be the son of Poseidon, but a demigod from him is _ unheard _ of. Or at least claimed ones, which makes sense. Or he’s just not mortal, which honestly is more likely-”

Bakugou thinks to that one time when they were five and Midoriya’s entire arm crumpled on itself like a foldable chair when he fell off their park’s monkey bars.

“Nope. Definitely mortal,” he cuts in dryly. “Anyways, _ Deku_!” He growls. Midoriya, still stuck in his bullshit Goku phase of disconnection, remains unresponsive. Bakugou scowls, and turns to Mineta. “How do we kill this thing?” He gestures at the hellhound.

_ “Does it look like I know?” _

Bakugou is going to spit on him. “Where are your buddies? Aren’t they grabbing help, where is everyone?” He roars. The boy, still staring at Midoriya, shrugs limply. This time, he actually does spit on him, and the boy flinches, recoiling slightly. “I cannot _ believe _-” he pinches his nose bridge. “DEKU!”

This time, Midoriya’s body jerks out of its state, his entire body going wack as he submerges back into existence. The tidal wave of water that was hovering over the dog rains pathetically, and Bakugou stares, unimpressed as he gets deeply soaked by the literal waterfall as well.

Midoriya blinks, this time, actually staring at Bakugou, seeing.

“Kacchan?”

“Shut the fuck up.” 

The dog shares his sentiment, and now pounces forward, clearly inherently more pissed at Midoriya than before, which would be deserved. The dog after all, looks dramatically wetter than before. 

The girl who Bakugou genuinely forgot was there, is crying louder.

Bakugou doesn’t blame her.

Midoriya now also looks ready to cry, despite his earlier upper hand with the dog. This time, Bakugou does blame him. “Deku, _ move._ What are you going to do? Huh? Water the crops with your tears? Goddamn _ move _ you pussy Stardew Valley NPC-”

And Bakugou strides forward, running with his socks squishing pathetically in his soaked shoes, his body shivering as air seeps between the cracks of his armour and chilling his sopping clothes and he can feel _ water _ up his asscrack which is fucking _ gross _ because now he’s going to have a wedgie-

He shoves dumbass Midoriya out of the way as a paw comes clamping down at the space between them.

And Bakugou looks at the dog, the way its eyes are vivaciously red and brighter than the artificial moon dangling above them by scotch tape and cut yarn, and Bakugou knows he’s going to die. 

The monster, almost artful in the crackling surrealness of reality, is going to bite off his head.

Huh. So in the end, it's not Satoshi that successfully decapitated his goddamn head in a fit of anger- it's a freaking dog that got into the protein powder. 

It’s instinctive, how Bakugou clamps a hand against its snout, feeling his palms steam when suddenly, the dog releases a low whine. Bakugou freezes, the heat collecting in a downward stream of fire within his blood halting, dammed up by emotions. He stares at the dog, and for a second, something awful wants him to jerk his hand back, as he sees the way the dingy mutt actually pause, as if waiting for his next mouvement. 

Bakugou's hand shakes, but his resolve is cemented: he doesn't pet the dog, because he knows the moment he does, he'd never be able to convince himself that the monster isn't inherently evil. 

He wonders if that makes him a bad person.

Distantly, Bakugou notes how his palm is smaller than its nose, and swears indelicately to Ares, while he allows energy to crackle through the nerves glitching down to his fingertips. 

He almost says sorry to the dog as its large, bulbous red eyes roll up to meet his. 

He hears the explosion before he feels it, loud and ringing and a threat against his eardrums. And _then_ he feels it. A gush of warmth and he doesn’t know why it’s _ wet _ and _ why is it wet_, as heat scorches his wrist. He can’t repress a scream as it’s torn out of his mouth by a searing intensity that jolts up his hand and rips through his shoulderblade in a wavelength of energy, forcing him to go flying back.

With a bullet still in the coil of his ear, and his vision still shaky, he glances at his hand. He realises faintly why it’s wet, as he wipes the blood off his palms and onto the grass beside him. His arm is patchy, now hairless, with peeling skin and its flesh a desert of angry reds from the heat.

His stomach flips as his vision settles on the animal in front of him. 

He blew off half of the dog’s snout. A chunk of his flesh is gone, revealing its bone structure, the terrifying width of it smeared in red and there’s blood everywhere and Bakugou’s going to _ puke _ and he never was grossed out by gore nor was he squeamish but-

He realises the globules of something dried and smoking a couple feet in front of him is the dog.

It’s dry, tendrils of heat wafting off of its jerky-esque texture. 

He literally made dog food.

And he can hear the dog- its low whine (it's a he, Bakugou notes), the pain colouring his timbre and he almost sounds _betrayed_ and Bakugou can't tell if he's sobbing or laughing but it's hysterical! Manic from the consistent stimuli bodyslamming his senses, and adrenaline and fright crossing his nerves and confusing his reactions, the moment a noise begins to bubble in the pits of his throat, his gag reflex triggers and he chokes. 

Bakugou laughs in one second, and in the next he empties his stomach into the nearest bush.

* * *

“Do you hear that?” Todoroki questions, as the ringing howl finally fades after sending at least a third of their campers into cardiac arrest.

“Sounds like a dog," Kirishima comments. "I love dogs!"

“Huh.” Todoroki murmurs, turning to Momo, who’s clutching the red side’s flag, victorious. “The game ended already, though.” He narrows his eyes. 

“Do we have a dog in this game?” Suzaku cocks an eyebrow. “We agreed to no battle animals.”

“Do the wolves that live nearby sound that,” and Sero’s gesturing wildly. “Large? If that makes sense? Like. That was _ loud _.” Another growl rips through the landscape. “That’s not a wolf.” Sero corrects meekly.

No. It isn’t. Todoroki quickly grabs the nearest sword he set down. “Where’s Aizawa-sensei?” He inquires sharply, glancing at the mass of campers still swarming them.

“Momo!” Calls a shrill voice, and the crowd’s chattering ceases at the panic in the shouter’s timbre. Todoroki rounds to the source, and he doesn’t recognise her or the kids following her, but knows they’re from their team side, and one of them is an Aphrodite kid. “T-there was a hellhound!”

“Oh. Makes sense,” Sero says casually, while everyone else erupts in a panicked and excited frenzy.

“Sero, not the right tone,” snorts Kirishima who clasps him hard on the back. 

"It doesn't make sense! A monster past our barrier?" Jirou snarks, eyebrows furrowed.

“Where? On our side, right?” Suzaku narrows his eyes, something Todoroki agrees with since it seems that the noise’s source is at his right.

“Y-yeah, I. Um. We sent Monoma to go grab Aizawa-sensei but-”

“Then it’ll be fine,” Momo reassures soothingly. “Everyone, please, quiet down! Suzaku, good game. Let’s all clean up, and calmly. Defense line one, go with Aizawa-sensei to deal with the beast. Everyone else, please stay on gua-"

“No!” And it’s one of the girl’s comrades, who shouted, his raspy tone interrupting Momo. And Todoroki stiffens. “It’s. It’s like _ on _ the property.” He whispers.

“Yes,” Momo elaborates gently, “but while uncommon, sometimes creatures do slip past the barrier. We can deal with it,” she murmurs. Todoroki remains silent, setting aside his sword for a bow. He’s on the defense team, a team built for when emergency battles take place; and though he’s primarily a swordsman, he usually fulfills their need for someone to fight from a distance. 

“No but! It showed up during the game in the back river and-”

“The back river?” Suzaku intervenes, voice now steely and expression contorted, and Todoroki inclines his head, unsure as to what could violently twist Suzaku's expression. “That’s where the newbies are, Bakugou and-”

“Yes! And. And,” and the boy’s tone is quivering but Todoroki can’t stay because _ the newbies are there _ and there’s _ no way they’re equipped to handle a hellhound _ . And Midoriya. Midoriya might not even _be_ a demigod; perhaps a halfie of another species, but not with the built-in resilience of a god. Todoroki’s already clipping an entire quiver of arrows onto his belt, ready to rush out, only to stop as Momo grabs his upper arm. He pauses, able to sense her casual demeanor slipping, due to the tightness of her grip. “We left Mineta and Rin there too and it’s just the new kids and-” 

Todoroki’s heard enough. He yanks himself free, and rushes out of the castle.

He hears footsteps behind him, and expecting it to be Momo, he whips around, only to cock an eyebrow at Suzaku. He doesn’t get along well with him. Apparently his “naturally arrogant stance” annoyed Suzaku, who’s a major hothead. 

The tan boy just scowls, swinging his blade over his shoulder. “Shut up. I placed Bakugou back there with his friend. It’s my responsibility, especially as a cabin leader.”

Todoroki shrugs. "I didn't say anything."

Suzaku rolls his eyes. "Bakugou's a dick."

"Are you trying to start a conversation with me?"

Suzaku shrugs. "I don't know. Just observed that you and Bakugou are pretty common in that aspect. Wanted to point it out."

Todoroki doesn't know what to make of Suzaku's currently placid attitude.

"Okay, now that's insulting."

"Being called a dick?"

"Being compared to Bakugou."

Suzaku this time, does laugh at that. He almost looks nice for a moment.

Todoroki feels on edge by that realisation. Suzaku's a strange guy. Very political when it comes to how gods should be seen, yet, seems to hold his god in high regards, enough to become a cabin leader. There's always something contradictory about him- nothing really consistent, and therefore makes him too complicated and complex for Todoroki to bother to get to really know.

"Bakugou's not a bad guy, though. Seems very open about how he feels about gods and their actions. Surprisingly righteous, without being high and mighty." Suzaku muses. "Nice and interesting guy. He so easily said 'fuck you' to the gods," and his laugh is raspy, coarse. Almost childish. 

"Bakugou also told Midoriya that he'd relocate his ankle into his voicebox. Definitely a very nice guy," Todoroki says dryly. Bakugou has the making of a _Toy Story _villain.

"Ha! Liking him already, even though I want to punch him," that seems to be the general consensus. "Interesting guy, for sure." Suzaku hums. "Maybe he's half dead by now," and Todoroki whips around, slightly unnerved by such an insensitive comment, "but if he's not, like, c'mon. Todoroki, be honest, don't tell me you're not interested in how he turns out?"

And Todoroki thinks about Midoriya, who's overlooked due to Bakugou's little show with the Minotaur, and how Midoriya in all aspects seems and looks normal and is almost boringly so, but in the most casual aspects, _can't_ be mortal. He so easily saw past their magical barrier, submerged into their world of three-dimensional mythology, and though he seems so purely human he _can't_ be, since he unintentionally contradicts the limitations set upon them. 

"Nah. He's not the one I'm interested in," Todoroki finally answers.

* * *

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah. I _ know _.”

“You just killed a hellhound.”

“I mean. Clearly _ not_, since it just. Vanished.” He scowls. Excluding the partially burnt clumps of meat and blood splattered everywhere, there’s no indication that a wolf was ever here, past the trampled ground. “Didn’t y’all say that monsters just. Don’t die or sum shit, and just reincarnate?” Bakugou sighs, scratching his jaw. “Anyways, I mean. You guys probably killed shitloads of beasts before, right?”

“No. But. This hellhound was _ massive _ . Sometimes monsters sneak by our barrier, but something _this_ big, couldn't come in undetected. This. This creature was _huge_."

“Yeah. My ribcage can attest to that,” Midoriya murmurs, voice still trembling, hands grasping the sword hilt, as its blade broke off after he jammed it through the dog’s bulbous eye, effectively ending it for good. 

Impressive, even though Bakugou would never congratulate him for that bullshit. Embarrassing. While blowing up chunks of his dinner, he watched out the corner of his watery eye, Midoriya partially running, clearly not here for this bullshit. The dog lowered his head to charge forward to give chase, when out of sheer luck, the dumbass Deku blindly plunged his sword forward, and landed a lucky hit, killing the hellhound.

"You body really okay?" Bakugou grunts. 

He really thought Deku was a straight up _goner _the moment the hellhound came out of the fucking woods behind the creek, and planted its paws on Deku's body.

He was tiny in comparison- wimpier than he originally was, underneath the paw that was bigger than his head.

And now that Bakugou thinks about it-

"Oi. Deku, how the fuck are you still breathing? That mutt should've crushed you."

At this, Midoriya, still swinging his broken sword, now collapsed onto his butt, doesn't reply for a second. "Um. I'm not sure. I thought my ribs were broken, and they still kind of hurt, but they're pretty okay." Midoriya pauses. "Actually, I think the water healed most of it? I don't know."

"Great, so you have some OP power with bullshit science," Bakugou snarls. 

“He. You guys really did kill it?” Says the girl, who’s _ still _ crying. 

“Hey, you, kid with the bullshit mohawk,” Bakugou snaps, ignoring her, and Mineta flinches, his stupid purple hair rumpled and its previously balled design now mussed. “What the fuck just happened?”

“_ You’re the one who had explosives coming out of his hands, _I don't have any answers for you!”

“And your point is?”

“That’s. That’s unheard of! Like. Him doing that water thingy wasn’t normal either, but it has a few explanations. You’re just._ What _.” Bakugou, not wanting to inform him that the power came from his deadbeat father who saved him in compensation for not responsibly pulling joint-custody with his mom, ignores his questioning tone. “What are you?”

“I’m literally just like you, dumbass,” Bakugou answers dryly. Which now, that he's able to really take a breather and think, implies that _hey_, maybe all these kids had some questionably overpowered quirky power as well, and if so, why the fuck they didn't use it. Whatever- maybe there are limitations set on them, since it's not like he's ever seen a kid really use any powers while here. Or maybe they're not used to it.

The point is that they don't have to anymore, because the hellhound is dead.

_ “No you’re not!” _

“I. Are you a monster?” Whispers the girl.

Bakugou glares, and then squints. "The fuck you talkin' about?" He hisses.

Even Mineta is staring at her with a tilted expression.

“I,” Bakugou leers. “Are you stupid?” But her tone nearly gutted Bakugou. Because though he definitely doesn't see himself as one, because fuck these people who are judging him, he wonders if in a certain perspective, him wishing for the dog's death implied something about his humanity. Sure, the dog attacked them first and clearly was salivating over Deku and therefore had poor taste both literally and metaphorically- but the dog was still intelligent enough to recognise that Bakugou could've spared him.

Bakugou ignores this thought.

Whatever. The dog'll respawn or some shit.

“Kacchan.” Comes a disapproving and stupidly stern tone, even though just seconds ago, Midoriya literally sounded like his insides were made of gelatin. 

“It was a legitimate question,” Bakugou coughs. And Bakugou feels gross, so he rips off his armour, feeling the cold evening breeze swarming the clothes sticking to his body. He still feels hot, despite the contrasting temperature, since adrenaline’s still flooding his veins and cramping his muscles. Grimacing, he picks up the chunks of meat and begins to toss them onto the breastplate that he keeps pressed to his hip, like it’s a laundry basket.

_ “What are you doing?” _

“Uh.” Bakugou glowers, inclining a brow at Mineta's incredulous tone. “Cleaning up? In fact you should be doing this too. Keep our grounds clean, jackass.” He did this at home, too. Someone had to help out his Ma with the chores, and that's not gonna be Sleazy Satoshi; man's the one who makes the mess. "You don't start hosing the blood off the grass, then I'll call my mom to come personally beat your ass," he snaps. 

Mineta stares at him helplessly.

Bakugou flips off Midoriya who’s now gazing at him shrewdly.

“I hope you get tapeworm from touching that,” Mineta mutters. 

“I’ll _ feed _ you this-”

“Kacchan, maybe you should find gloves or something,” Midoriya interrupts him, eyes fixated on his hands. 

“My hands are already covered in its mutt blood,” Bakugou leers, sticking out his tongue. “If I get rabies, then I get rabies.”

“God I wish that was me,” says Midoriya at the same time Mineta says “is that how rabies works?”

Bakugou takes a second for his brain to reboot, processing Midoriya's words. He jerks his gaze up, and fixates it on Midoriya, unsure how to respond to that. And Bakugou's never experienced being at a loss of words, but here he is now.

“Also, to answer your question, no. It's not a blood virus, unlike, for example, HIV.” Midoriya turns to the boy.

“I genuinely do not want you to talk to me,” Mineta says seriously.

“Are we just. Are we just going to ignore what you just said? Like I don’t even know how to interpret that like. _ Is _ there an interpretation?” And Bakugou has _never_ been insultingly unresponsive, especially against Deku. But there are some qualities to this world that Bakugou’s pretty sure is a coded variation of god's words, but he just cannot understand them.

“Yes.”

Bakugou sighs, and wishes he was not here right now. “You, shitfish-” Bakugou barks, and Mineta turns his judgmental gaze towards him now, “what the fuck do we do now?”

“I. Do you think _ I _ know?” He howls. “We don’t have a handguide for this! You’re touching raw meat with your hand- _definite health code violation_\- there’s blood everywhere, we nearly just died, your hands decided to become personalised flamethrowers, and oh, _ look _, now Poseidon claims his son,” he blathers, and Bakugou follows the direction he’s flipping his stupidly short arms towards.

And it’s like Midoriya’s a Sims character who unlocked an achievement, a symbol showing up above his head in the shape of a uselessly three-pronged fork. A thork.

“What?” Midoriya blinks. “No. I. I had a father I even remember him-”

“You literally have a trident above your head,” groans the boy beside him. “Rin, you’re seeing this, right?”

“Mineta,” replies Rin, her tone hollow. “That’s bad. No wonder a monster got in, he smelled a son of the Big Three and-” And Bakugou doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on, but he bristles, something cold and dangerous zipping his ribcage closed, hiding away the inmost part of himself. “It’s his fault the monster’s here.”

“That’s bullshit,” Bakugou automatically fires, his tone unrecognisable to himself. He doesn’t even _ like _ goddamn Deku, nor did he ever have a moral compass that persuaded him to place moral judgment over his own feelings, and his own feelings definitely stew in something resentful towards Deku. Therefore he doesn’t know why he feels defensive, something grudging and daring towards Rin at her spiteful tone. “And even if it’s because he’s a son of Poison-”

“Poseidon.”

_ The audacity. _Bakugou’s going to clock Deku.

“How the fuck is that his fault, huh? You think he decided ‘yes, I’m going to be genetically birthed through _ this _ manwhore father-”

“Kacchan, please do not call the gods, ‘manwhore’.”

“You think you got to choose to be birthed by shitty ass parents, too? Huh?” Bakugou snaps. “Back the fuck off. We killed the damn mutt, didn’t we?” Bakugou growls lowly. “Why the fuck are you complaining? We cleaned up after our messes,” and he shakes his stupid breastplate filled like a bowl of peas, except instead of peas, it’s dog meat. “For sure, he caused more trouble than he's worth and it’d be better off if he didn’t show up; but he fucking did, and you valuing your personal safety over his-” and he jerks a pointed middle finger at Midoriya who looks terrified at being called out by Bakugou, “when he’s the only one who got injured and attacked, because you’re weak shit that even monsters can’t eat you for a protein bar-”

“Kacchan.”

“And the monster wasn’t even after _ you _ the entire time, remember that! Deku got the brunt of it and that’s why his ribs be looking like a compressed accordion-"

“_Kacchan."_

“And it’s like now he has artificial asthma-”

“That’s not how asthma works,” said a lower voice, but Bakugou’s too enraged to think through the implications of that.

“And I’ll reinforce respirational issues on _ you _ instead if you really don’t understand what you’re burdening him with. And if you want to vent your anger out on Deku, for fucking sure, I _ always _ do that!”

“Kacchan, _ please_.”

“But I don’t want to hear your cupcake whiney-ass bullshit that involves putting him down as if he doesn’t have problems of his own!” And Bakugou wants to hork another wad of saliva onto this Rin if necessary, but he doesn’t because he's going to save a glob for _Deku_. He whirls around to give reanimated Veggie Tales figurea piece of his mind because clearly there’s _ nothing _ up there in his goddamn hollow-ass cranium for him to-

Deku, standing there absolutely dry while all of them are sopping wet, is surrounded by an entire camp.

“Artificial asthma isn’t a thing,” says the fucking two-toned bastard whose tone matches the one from earlier, while Aizawa steps up from beside him.

Bakugou drops his improuvised tine bowl full of meat, slowly turning his gaze to Midoriya, who’s awkwardly standing there with the thork still floating above his head, then to Rin, who's looking like she’s going to get whacked by another existential crisis, and finally lands on Mineta, who looks vaguely disconnected from reality. 

There are three soaking wet children, and one that looks like he got fished out of a pool of Kool-Aid.

At Rin's feet, is the flopping fish that he's pretty sure she earlier threw back into the river. 

“Is that raw meat.” Inquires an Irrelevant that Bakugou doesn't recognise past his wide, Doraemon smile. Sero, he thinks.

“No.”

It’s _ basically _ cooked.

“Isn’t raw meat a delicacy?” Mineta inquires weakly.

“Are we just. Not going to.” Stammers Round Face, and Bakugou recognises her. The sucker for kindfaces. “Midoriya are you okay?”

“I can’t believe you just called Poseidon a manwhore,” states Suzaku, who’s staring at Bakugou with something unreadable in his countenance. Bakugou flips him off.

“I think.” Aizawa clasps his hands together. “Everyone!” He bellows, and Bakugou raises an eyebrow. He didn’t think the man would have enough energy to sound so loud. “To the campfire!” Then he whips around. “And you four-”

“I want to be excused!” Squeaks Rin. “I’m not injured-”

“On the outside.” Bakugou grumbles.

“Not until Bakugou shouted at her,” Mineta says solemnly.

“I'm sorry but. I really want to go lay down.”

"She trying to slip into something more comfortable. Like a coma," Suzaku comments, amused. Bakugou's going to punch him.

"She just trying to forget," Sero nods amiably.

Aizawa sighs, and nods, and she _ runs_. 

“You three, first visit the medical wing, and then you two-” he points at Bakugou and Midoriya. “Come see me afterwards.”

And Bakugou’s gotten enough detentions to know where this is going.

* * *

Sen yanks open the tent wing, and sighs at the blonde who's glowering at him profusely, and the boy who's limp on his back with a skeletal figure that looked like it concaved on itself. “It’s you two again.” He then realises the two are blocking another figure, one that's not just vertically challenged, but vertically abused, looking very out of place.

Sen feels instant sympathy for the boy. Mineta, he believes that's his name.

“Um. Hi!” Waves the reanimated weed.

The blonde looks like he’s going to bite off the Weed’s hand.

“Weren’t you two here literally this morning.” And it’s not a question, it’s a fact. 

“Sorry, we got a bit...caught up.”

“Am I going to get rabies?” Inquires the blonde, raising a hand absolutely coated in what’s probably not red paint.

Sen stares, and rips the tent flap shut, before turning around and kicking aside the desk with a lamp still sticking out of it.

* * *

Bakugou stares at the tent flap. "Do we just leave, then?" Bakugou says. Then, a scream rips from inside the tent. "Well, now I don't even want to go in if given the option."

"My ribcage isn't going to heal itself, Kacchan."

"I will drop you." He replies shortly, shifting his grip on Midoriya since he's sliding off. He grunts, grossed out by how the caked blood in the creases of his palms are exfoliating Midoriya's legs. "You being injured is because you're stupid."

"Sorry I'm not an intellectual and wasn't able to instantaneously think of precalc to mentally visualise the trajectory of the angles and their trigonometry counterparts to figure out the hypotenuse as the vector I should've leaped to avoid the dog's attacks in a certain range of seconds-"

"Deku when the _fuck_ did you get so mouthy? Huh? Bitchass you think because you stabbed a dog from luck all of a sudden I won't dropkick you like a pinata? Huh?" Bakugou spits, and kneads it into the ground with the bottom of his worn out Sketchers. 

He waits for Midoriya's response. Then he _realises_ he's waiting for a response, as if he's expectant towards one. Looking forward towards one. Jesus Christ what the hell. "Kacchan, if you injure me right now I will _sue_ you-" and is that a _threat?_ Bakugou has _never_ heard Midoriya utter a threat. Not even because he's a coward, but simply because he's _not like that_. It's just not in his nature to utter a threat even as a joke. 

If anything, Deku was never really a coward- he was just annoying. Never knew his fucking place, always had to speak up. In its own way, he was never afraid of spitting shit despite all of Bakugou's anger and responses. It felt almost disrespectful, even if Midoriya was always inherently respectful. 

"Deku. Guess I just have to make it so that you're unable to sue me, bitch."

"Is that a threat."

"Um. Maybe I should go-" A third party enters, and Bakugou whips around, eyes flashing. 

"No, you-" Bakugou snarls, and Mineta yelps. Bakugou ignores the sharp slap against his shoulder, and _damn_ when did Midoriya get fuckin' bold? Unwarranted and unwanted. 

Bakugou would put him in his place with a quick throw over his shoulder, but he doesn't, as he reminds himself that the boy's probably five seconds away from heart failure, as mother nature intended. 

"Be straight with me- so it ain't normal for kids to have powers?"

"We went over this! I said no! It's not normal!"

"In that case, don't you dare tell anyone about this." Bakugou growls, and he means to loom over Mineta (which honestly, is just standing next to him), but he feels his tired knees buckling underneath Midoriya's uncanny weight. It's obvious that lots of the kids here are more terrified of the unknown, and he's definitely an anomaly. He already has a shit reputation, not like he gives a fuck, but making it even worse would simply cause major problems. "Would that girl, Rin, tell?"

"Uh. Maybe. She's not a gossiper, but it'd be weird if anyone witnessed something strange or interesting and _not _talk about it," Mineta reasons, looking less afraid now that Bakugou already set his foundation of rules. 

Fuck. "Mineta, do me a solid," and Bakugou does _not _ask for help, he's just pulling damage control, "dispel any rumours. See if you can tell her beforehand to not spread shit about me, but if she already did, as the other witness, claim that you didn't see anything like that, and Rin must've been under pressure."

"Isn't this gaslighting?"

"Shut the _fuck _up, Deku. You're injured, I'll gaslight you too-"

"Uh. I'll just try and find her," Mineta says, and Bakugou knew it was a good idea to not launch him straight into the forest.

* * *

Sen opens the curtain.

"Weren't there three of you?"

"Yes." The blonde states innocently.

Sen squints.

Then stares at the boy's bloodied shirt, and the half-dead boy splayed on his back.

He sighs.

Well, campers go missing all the time.

* * *

"Yo, the fuck is that?"

"Ambrosia."

"Looks like lemon cake," Bakugou comments, his feet swaying in a disjointed rhythm from where he's perched on the dresser he previously deconstructed like an IKEA set and somehow warped a lamp through it. Sen pointedly ignores his presence.

"Tastes like chocolate chip cookies," Midoriya slurs. Sen hums. He's heard that before- it's a general favourite of children.

"Why are you feeding it to him? He's barely conscious, he's gonna choke," Bakugou observes. His expression suddenly darkens. "Shove it into his mouth all at once."

Sen halts, squinting at him.

One day, that boy's going to jail, and it's going to be no one's fault but his own.

"Ambrosia is basically a gift from the gods," he expounds. "It has healing properties towards demigods, except if you eat too much of it, you'll burn up and die."

"Oh." Bakugou muses. "That's like eating raw ginger." And Sen feels something in his mind disconnect, a plug being yanked from its outlet and never finding its way back. He doesn't know what to do with such a scarily accurate metaphor spoken so casually.

He does what he does best: ignore his feelings until it dissolves into Nothingness.

"Right. Anyways, it heals most injuries as long as they're not too severe to the point where they're basically dead. Midoriya will be fine in minutes, though, he'd still be physically and mentally tired. He should rest for now."

"Nah, 'Zawa called us to a bonfire or sum?" Bakugou shrugs, tossing the washcloth he used to wipe his disgusting hands back into the bucket of faintly pink water. And Sen ponders over that. Must be something important, then. "Anyways. Deku can suffer for all I care." Sen, ultimately unimpressed, beams as he clasps a hand on Bakugou's shoulder.

"If Midoriya blacks out, the responsibility and blame will not be on my shoulders."

"You're actually quite sadistic, aren't you."

Sen's smile only stretches wider.

* * *

"Midoriya Izuku has been claimed by Poseidon!" Aizawa announces, his voice trying its best to sound relatively excited, though, it flatlines into bedrock.

The entire camp is absolutely silent at that, the only noise breaking the silence being the crackling of the terrifyingly large bonfire. From his isolated seat, Bakugou glances about, wondering if perhaps Aizawa isn't really waiting for a reaction.

Then he notices the faces of the campers close to him.

There's something grim, distorted about their shadowed countenances, reds and yellows highlighting the creases of fear folding their young faces.

The hell? 

Bakugou slowly pulls himself out of his apathetic slouch, now more aware of the strange atmosphere suffocating him. He swivels his gaze back to Midoriya, who's awkwardly standing out of obligation, next to Aizawa who's at the very front of the campfire, the audience including him splayed out on logs and the uprooted plain in front of it. 

"You may sit down," Aizawa nods towards Midoriya, who looks visibly relieved as tension pathetically leaks out of him.

Then, to Bakugou's living horror, Midoriya, looking very lost and very small since his entire backdrop is engulfed by a fire larger than the Minotaur he fought, is looking at the crowd with an expression of "fuck", before fixating on Bakugou.

They make eye contact.

Goddammit.

And he assumed Midoriya would find actual friends- or like people who wanted him nearby such as Round Face or the halfassed Shoujo KFC boy, but _no_, Deku is walking towards _him_.

But since Bakugou is nice, and feels pissed off by the way the campers around him appear momentarily stunned if not frightened by Midoriya's presence, doesn't flip Midoriya off as he sits next to him.

"And about the hellhound that appeared on camp today, we've determined that it's much too large for our protective barrier to have overlooked. We'll continue looking into it."

This time, there is a reaction.

A low murmur, a wave of negativity that ripples throughout the camp like a bad Wi-Fi signal stolen from the neighbour's house when one holds their phone outside of a window.

For some reason, it puts Bakugou on edge. Maybe it's because he doesn't know what the collective thought is looping through the camp- that he's left in the unknown, but there's something almost honed about the mood.

He glares at his feet.

"Also, whoever keeps cleaning the toilets with corn bread, please stop." And Aizawa almost sounds desperate. "It's soggy and collecting at the pits of the pipes, you're clogging the toilet with DIY urinal sponges- whoever's been doing this I _will_ quarantine you in the isolation ward. Anyone who knows something and is keeping quiet on it are accomplices, and I will find out about your blasphemy." He clears his throat. "That'll be all. You're dismissed."

* * *

"This is where you'll be sleeping for the rest of the days. Tomorrow you can contact your mother through Iris."

Midoriya nods mutely. "This. This is it?"

And Midoriya doesn't mean to sound ungrateful, but frankly, Cabin Three looks terrifying.

It looks lonely (but then he recalls when he headed into the Apollo cabin to retrieve his only belonging of bagged wet clothes, and had to step over a series of frightened eyes and bitter leers, and thinks that he was always lonely. At least Sero looked sad to see him go).

He hears the cold night wind whistles through the low windows cut into the stone cabin, the structure low and size, small.

"It looks small because children of the Big Three shouldn't exist," Aizawa sniffs. "That's why all of the Big Three cabins are tiny- they're not actually meant to be used for habitation, as they're mostly there out of respect."

Midoriya spirals into a sudden sense of dread. "What do you mean, 'they shouldn't exist'?"

"Basically, after War World II when the children of the Big Three showed how much influence they had over the course of human events-" Midoriya's mind whiplashes through that statement.

"Wait? Nazis existed?"

"I _know_, I'm just saying that there were also influential players who were the children of one of the Big Three, and produced a handful of carnage themselves. Those children were more than just superhuman: they exceeded the strength and limits of an average demigod, to the point where it's almost inevitable that they'd sway the course of human civilisation. This was what convinced the Big Three to swear an oath to never have demigod children."

Midoriya blinks at that, and slowly, makes eye contact with Aizawa, who appears drastically unimpressed. "I mean. Clearly they failed." Aizawa states dryly.

"Oh my god." He's _literally_ unwanted. He's not supposed to be born. "Do the gods just. Not know safe sex?"

"You're overestimating their forethought."

_"Oh my god."_

"Don't worry. You're like only the second child the Big Three claimed ever since that oath. Zeus broke this promise a decade or so ago by having a demigod child. And besides, there could be way more demigod children of the Big Three that they just didn't claim to avoid admitting they broke the oath," Aizawa states. Then, out of the clear cool night, rumbles distant thunder. "Oops. Mocked them too much," Aizawa informs flatly. Midoriya blinks. Aizawa fails to elaborate.

Midoriya turns his gaze back to the shallow building. 

It looks almost haunted: the walls grey and stony, building low and bare.

If anything, it resembles too much like a tombstone.

A predestined coffin.

"So you're basically the only child here." Midoriya stares at the cloudy background of the shadowy cabin. "Well. Good luck!"

"Whoa, wait! Can I. Can I have people over?"

"Technically, cabin rules says no. However, cabin rules are reinforced and adjusted by the cabin leader."

"Who's the cabin leader?"

"Kid. You're the only cabin member."

"Oh."

"Do whatever you want, just don't bother other cabins. Don't bother me, either. Be up by eight, tomorrow if you don't want to miss breakfast." Aizawa says, before clopping away.

* * *

"This is not a sleepover."

"Right, Kacchan."

"I'm only here not because you asked me to, but because the Ares cabin is full of dicks." 

"Right, Kacchan," and Midoriya's tempted to tease that maybe the Ares cabin really is where Bakugou belongs, but he's also just grateful that Bakugou didn't put up a fight. Sure, when Midoriya knocked on his cabin door and Suzaku answered (one of the few other campers who seemed happy to see Midoriya), Bakugou socked him in the face and attempted to throw him over the porch.

He stopped when Midoriya offered free space over at his cabin, explaining that he figured Bakugou would hate sleeping with other people, and at least in a relatively ghosted cabin, he'd only have to deal with one other person.

Bakugou agreed, then still tossed Midoriya over the porch railing.

"And I fuckin' hate you. But I hate the fuckers who talk shit about you even more, thinking you're something to be afraid of when you have the personality of a used tissue."

Midoriya pulls the dusty blanket over his head. 

"Right, Kacchan," he replies, his words smothered underneath the cotton sheet.

The wind shrieking through the cutout windows sounds almost like crying, whistling through the ribs of this skeleton town.

But Midoriya, for all the loneliness engulfing his small world, falls asleep quickly to the the breathing of his childhood friend, underneath the melancholy dream that this is one of their weekend sleepovers underneath the same glow-and-the-dark stickered ceiling. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay just like to note: not all campers are uneasy about bakugou + midoriya. lots of them still vibe bc i feel like when it comes to children, esPECIALly teenagers, they highkey just don't rlly give a shit anymore.
> 
> so you'll see in the next chapters that despite lots of them being >:V at midoriya, lots of them just chill
> 
> and nESxt chapter is when i think i'll start the prophecy, meaning mAYBE that's when FINALLy my boi kirsihima actually exists. same with todoroki.


	4. friendship but not really. bakugou's emotional constipation.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -SPOILER: bakugou straight up saves all of them because he doesn't know yaoyorozu's fucking name LMAO   
-bakugou straight up tries to murder todoroki at one point. EDIT: he actually tries to do it twice.  
\- oracle.  
\- existential crisis and daddy issues with midoriya here.  
\- essentially annabeth here is like three different characters at once LMAO. and grover is kirishima but my man's not vegan.  
\- BRO THESE ARE LIKE FIVE JAPANESE KIDS TRYING TO NAVIGATE AROUND AMERICA THEY'RE STRUGGLING. bakugou: "tf is a medusa?"  
\- medusa and the fact that uh in her original story, she was depicted as being sexually assaulted!!! like!! oh no!!!!! and as a young maiden of that time period she was like. a fucking kid okay lmao.  
\- i fucking just write whatever i want and i hope people like it so have fun   
\- bakugou wears kirishima's hoodie because i fucking forgot he can't just walk into a public area covered in blood and i was like "wait holy shit what the fuck"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also i just wanna say, it's pretty normal i'm sure for bakugou to NOT instinctively reach for a sword when encountering monsters. bc like. i mean he's literally just a human and he's only handled a sword fro like two hours so he like. tends to just forget to use his sword. 
> 
> TW:TW TWIIWIWIWI PTW TW TRIGGER WARNING MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. there's absolutely NO description of sexual assault, but, it's mentioned as a topic bc uh,,,, i mean. zeus is NOT the type of guy to seek consent. and also based on older stories, medusa wasn't depicted as just hanging out with her bf in athena's temple, but rather, she was assaulted (it's just that they didn't care if they wrote assault lmao bc they were like!! whatevs who cares about human rights)

“What are you doing?”

“None of your business.”

Todoroki stares a bit longer.

He watches as Bakugou squeezes more of Jirou’s eyelash glue onto Midoriya’s closed eyes. Bakugou didn't even elaborate how he got someone as reserved as Jirou, with _his_ personality, to share something of hers. 

He squints a bit harder.

“Isn’t this vaguely unethical.”

“Hell yeah.”

And if Todoroki knew that Midoriya’s friend was going to sleep over at his cabin, he would’ve just passed Aizawa-sensei’s demand to wake him up onto Kirishima or someone else. Now he feels like a morally responsible bystander, or an accomplice of an attempted murder.

He takes another look at Bakugou.

He narrows his eyes. 

Accomplice to accomplished murder.

“Eyelash glue isn’t _ that _ strong, isn’t it?”

“That’s why we’re _ testing _it,” Bakugou snaps, as if Todoroki’s the unreasonable one, when Bakugou is currently going Dr. Frankenstein over his alleged friend. “Anyways, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“To wake him up,” Todoroki says, pointedly punctuating ‘him’, since Bakugou shouldn’t _ be _ here.

“Oh, great,” Bakugou replies with uncharacteristic casualness. “You can do that in a second,” he snickers, and Todoroki suddenly thinks he should remove himself from the premises. “Anyways, Jirou said you gotta fan the glue so it dries a bit,” he murmurs.

“Why would Jirou even give you that?”

“Because she said she didn’t have staplers when I asked for some.”

Mildly concerned about Bakugou’s slipping mask of normalcy that only reveals an undercurrent of psychopathy, Todoroki considers grabbing Aizawa-sensei. But before he can fully decide how to save humanity, Bakugou pedals backwards, and gestures to him. “You said you wanted to wake him up?”

And Todoroki inwardly prays for forgiveness. Even though by the time he arrived Bakugou had already lined Midoriya’s eyes like an arts-and-crafts project, he probably should’ve wiped off the glue before it dried.

“I’m good,” Todoroki finally responds flatly, holding up a hand.

“Coward.”

“Lunatic.”

"Thinned out caffeine."

"As if I have enough energy to have imposter coffee syndrome," Todoroki replies flatly. And Todoroki, effectively tired of Bakugou’s raging bullshit when it’s only six-thirty in the morning and he hasn’t had breakfast, has half the mind to go caveman on Bakugou’s hollow skull with the Nearest Rock he can find.

Then, he flinches as a sudden roar rips from the boy beside him. “DEKU!”

“There’s no way-” Todoroki begins in disbelief.

His words are stunted by the sudden scene unfolding right before his eyes, as Midoriya jackknifes up in his bed, rumpling the sheets around him by his sudden movement, nearly shattering his cranium against the headboard. “Ka-_ aaAaAA- _ oh my god what the fuck my _ eyes hurt-” _

And he didn’t even know Midoriya _ sweared. _

“Hehe,” Bakugou says, appearing very smug. “K.O.’d.”

Todoroki stares, horrified as Bakugou watches unblinkingly, eyes snapped wide and fixated, as Midoriya topples off the side of his bed, pawing at his eyes and the things around him, before yanking down the bedside lamp that shatters over his head.

* * *

“-and that’s why I think you need to schedule Bakugou a psychiatric appointment.”

Todoroki gives Aizawa-sensei a second to recuperate.

Aizawa-sensei slowly slams his mug back onto the park table before looking over at Todoroki.

“I literally can’t take this anymore. I am _ losing _ my shit,” Aizawa-sensei enunciates, eyes cracked with angry capillaries and twenty-years of babysitting. 

Todoroki slowly slides his gaze away from Aizawa-sensei, as if that could somehow smother the pity radiating in his eyes. At this movement, his eyes fixate on Aizawa-sensei’s deck. “Oh. You’re going to lose,” he comments, feeling worse for Aizawa-sensei as this goes on.

“In that case, I’m betting all I got,” Yamada suddenly says, from the other side of the table, shoving an entire deck of poker chips into the middle. Todoroki watches blankly as Aizawa-sensei angrily folds all his cards, and stares at Todoroki.

“Anymore bad news?” And if Todoroki was a bit more socially ept, he’d feel more confident in assuming he sounds almost sarcastic.

Todoroki thinks about it. 

“Kirishima ate our Expo markers ag-”

“Get out.”

* * *

Bakugou storms up to Aizawa, who’s seated with a figure who has a similarly greenish pallor as that Kan (Ken? Kendo??), making him look like a peeled Green Giant cosplayer. Probably alerted by the thundering of his stomps, Aizawa looks up from his card game, looking a lot more frazzled and exponentially frustrated since the last time Bakugou saw him a couple hours ago.

“Oh my god, _ you _.” And now Aizawa just sounds like every other teacher he’s had since middle school. “What do you want? Are you going to tell me that you cut off all of Midoriya’s eyelashes with a nailclipper, too?”

“See. Making fun of Deku is a hobby. Finding my mom is a priority,” he clarifies, as Aizawa massages his nose bridge with rough conviction. “So what do we do?”

“Listen. I don’t even know what we can do about you,” he finally breathes. “However, I think. You are connected to a prophecy,” he confides slowly, and the atmosphere changes, but Bakugou doesn’t know _ why _ because that means frank _ shit _ to him. “But I don’t believe it was meant directly for you, but rather, you’re tied to it by association. I think the prophecy is for your friend.”

Bakugou has to take a second. 

That second does nothing for him.

Friend?

“Who?”

Aizawa looks unimpressed by his absent revelation. “Midoriya.”

Bakugou, glitching for a moment, doesn’t have a chance to verbally abuse him into redacting that statement, and Aizawa continues talking, abandoning his cards. By this point, the strange man he was playing against has gotten up and left. “I sent Midoriya to go seek the Oracle.” 

“You think they know shit about my mom?”

“No. They only spout prophecies, and usually those are linked with the gods,” and it’s unsaid, but Bakugou hears it: they don’t give a shit about an individual. Sometimes things are bigger than one person.

His mom is bigger than every person, though.

He hates that he can’t complain about the rational, that he just _ has _ to accept things for how it is.

“He’ll return soon. That's when we'll consider what to do next.”

* * *

Midoriya wants to go home.

He sighs, and immediately begins to choke as his sharp inhale vacuums in the dust blanketing the creaky attic.

And he’s not one to judge.

But this attic? This flimsy house that looked like Bakugou could spit against it and knock it flat? It’s interior is really starting to look like all those houses he sees in those questionable TikToks.

He swallows his saliva, refusing to hork it even though his mouth feels dirtied. Blearily, he glances at the shelf that looks close to collapsing on him, having the same energy as Wednesdays. The shelf hoards secrets and treasures, dated in Roman numerals and radical names. He glances a bit closer, and sees the glistening plates nailed into a few of the unidentifiable sculptures, and signatures scrawled on peeling nametags pasted against jars cluttered with things.

He wants to investigate some more, but he feels almost guilty for doing so. He doesn’t want to touch someone elses’ things. Rather, he glances around, vaguely mesmerised by the tables with scrolls and ink wells dried with dust and possibly mold. He takes a step forward, enraptured by the eight rocking chairs in the back that tilt with each movement he makes. 

If he wasn’t so scared of breathing in a plague from a decade ago or accidentally making the wrong step and bringing this house of cards down, he might appreciate this aesthetic a bit more. Blearily, he squints through the light filtering in through the musty window, the sunshine reflecting off of the debris floating about in the air.

He steps through the patch of light.

That’s when he sees what essentially looks like a human constructed out of corn husks and every Asian grandma’s silk leopard printed clothes.

That can’t be real.

The skull slips a bit farther down its spine shrouded in colourful scarves.

No way.

Hesitant, and the mystique of this room souring, he feels captured, unsettled rather than disgusted.

_ Oracle. _ Aizawa-sensei said to talk to the Oracle. But who keeps a skeleton in the attic? 

_ Well. I mean. So far you’ve met the Minotaur. Was chased by a giant slime monster. Killed a giant dog _ oh god I killed something-

Right.

He’s just going to talk to the skeleton. After all, heading home is apparently _ not _ an option. Besides, Aizawa-sensei hinted at the possibility of finding Bakugou-san through this way. He’d feel ashamed if he stepped away now.

The skeleton creaks, and Midoriya freezes from fright. The jaw viciously unhinges, and Midoriya watches as green plumes blossoms out from its mouth cavity, clouding his vision.

Oh.

_ Oh. _

Fuck this.

Fuck this shit.

And before Midoriya can quickly calculate the fastest way out of here without promptly bringing down this entire unstable house (in .05 seconds he realizes the only option is flinging himself out the attic window), he hears a voice.

Oh heck. Jesus. Dear Lord who Midoriya isn’t even sure exists if there are apparently gods that can’t keep it in their pants overlooking the world like a Sims creator. _ Oh heck. Frick. Crap, fuck fuck- _

“_ You shall go west, and face the god who has turned,” _hisses a faceless voice. He takes a hot second.

“I have to face a _ god _ -” and he can barely face _ Bakugou _ on a given day.

“_ You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned,” _oh and she lost him and it’s only the second sentence.

“_ You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend,” _ and that’s a lot of ‘shall’s. But this line seizes his throat- crushing him with his first and instantaneous thought of _ Kacchan. _ And he shouldn’t even be that surprised if Bakugou does betray him because they’re not close and it doesn’t even count as a betrayal if that’s the case- 

But then he suddenly _ really _ rewinds the sentence.

He reads it again in his mind.

And he laughs at god's face. '_ One who calls you a friend' _ \- so explicitly and undeniably and _ guarantingly _ NOT Bakugou Katsuki then.

In his mortifying relief (and he vehemently _ hates _ this sense of relief over someone like Bakugou, in spite of how he still remains accepting of his complicated feelings towards him, who's an old bully and even older friend-), he nearly misses the next line: “ _ And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.” _

His high extinguishes. Maybe it’s simply because he was just thinking about Bakugou, but his friend is his only thought in his mind right now (_ what matters most) _ and all Midoriya can do is rationalise that it _ can’t _ be because his relationship with Kacchan, though impeding and vast and somewhat terrifying at times, is ultimately not what matters most _ yet (I will fail to save what ma )- _

He takes a deep breath.

_ Well, maybe that’s just for me; maybe someone else saves whatever this is, maybe it’s not Bakugou and mine’s friendship. _

He sighs. He watches his breath disperse the clouds of green that are already clearing around him.

He turns to the oracle, and he can’t be _ mad _ about her, she’s really just doing her job, but-

And before he can at least frown at her, he sees something jammed in her unhinged jaw. At first, he takes a step back. _A tongue._

But tongues aren't white. And why would she have a tongue if the rest of her body has decayed?

Inclining a brow, he walks over, and dislodges what appears to be a scroll, in terrifyingly modernly white paper that really doesn’t fit in with this cryptic ancient aesthetic- a complaint he’ll have for later.

Unrolling it, he recognizes that it’s the entire script of the prophecy. Relief sags his tense breath, as he realises he’s saved from probably getting an ass whooping by Aizawa. In his distraught state, he would not have remembered everything she said. 

“Hey,” he turns to the lady, slack jawed and alone in this dusty attic. 

And it must be lonely. He suddenly feels bad for finding her creepy. He feels bad for her being stuck here, initiating others’ demise, prophesying others’ endings.

“Thanks,” he says, before leaving.

* * *

“Knew it.” Aizawa says, reading off the paper. Bakugou scrunches his nose, impatient and vaguely annoyed- he didn’t get to see what Midoriya brought back. “Zeus probably thinks you stole it.”

Bakugou cocks an eyebrow, surprised by the sudden mention of an infamous god, and he glances at Midoriya, the twerp, who looks equally confused. Bakugou takes slight satisfaction that they’re not on different pages.

“Yeah. Cool.” Midoriya blinks. “That means….”

“That means the reason why the sky hasn’t been perfectly and magically clear and instead this entire camp is being played like the setting of _ Total Drama Island _ is because Zeus’ Master Bolt went missing, and when Posedion claimed you, he probably thinks you were the one who took it.” He says in one sitting.

“I stole a _ bolt?” _

_ “ _ You watched _ Total Drama Island?” _Bakugou reiliterates. 

“Yes,” Aizawa responds, not clarifying at all exactly which question he was responding to. Bakugou is thrown into a loop that Aizawa, a person who's hundreds of years old, has seen a modern television cartoon show. Bakugou barely grasps onto his next couple of sentences. “-the first lightning bolt. Powerful weapon.”

“Yeah. And I’m a weak mortal,” Midoriya retorts instantly, brows furrowed, grinding his lip into paste. “Is. Don’t gods usually underestimate humans’ abilities-”

“Only when it’s not inconvenient,” Aizawa shrugs. “It’s pretty easy to just blame you,” he adds, sounding rather unsympathetic given the situation. 

“Great.” Midoriya wheezes. “Um. So what do you mean by the weather going bad? It’s sunny?”

“Nah,” Bakugou shakes his head. It wasn’t sunny when his mom disappeared.

“Right now it strangely is- probably because Zeus is pleased with us actually addressing the problem to you. But overnight, did you hear the howling and thunderstorm?” Aizawa says. “We don’t experience intense weather past sunshine on a normal basis. The moment you were claimed, Zeus took offense.”

“That’s stupid,” Bakugou says.

Bakugou’s vision blinks white as a sudden shock scatters across the sky, and he has to shut his eyes hard to disperse the flashes of white, using the following angry rumble to identify them as lightning.

“Yeah why don’t you continue talking, Bakugou,” Aizawa says, deadpanned. 

Bakugou’s going to undercut him so hard he lands next to Zeus’ own two feet. That way, he can kiss up to him whenever he wants.

“But. I didn’t do anything!” Midoriya squeals.

“Yeah, he don’t got the balls,” Bakugou says.

“Well, I mean. The gods were always tense with each other, and Poseidon proved he broke the pact-”

“Broken the condom, too,” Bakugou murmurs.

“Stop it before you have a thunderstorm and tsunami flooding our camps,” Aizawa instructs nastily, looking at Bakugou with a different expression for the first time since they’ve met. It’s as if he’s now realising that Bakugou is essentially a bipedal natural disaster. “And the fact that you just shown up, and Zeus’ property was stolen recently, is enough for him to consider you guilty.”

Bakugou scowls. “What the fuck is this bullshit conclusion? The American justice system?”

Aizawa turns to him, grimacing, looking like he wants to say more. “I mean.” And he’s not denying it, showing unspoken agreement. 

“What happened to innocent till proven guilty?” Bakugou argues testily.

“You have to understand, that Zeus and Poseidon of course have their own sibling rivalry, somewhat like you and Midoriya-”

“I appreciate your insight of our relationship but please refrain from saying these things in front of Kacchan-”

_ “Who and whose sibling rivalry, huh-” _

“-but Zeus’ lightning bolt is not something to be taken lightly. We don't know who has it. That’s why we’re acting out on assumption- so in this situation, it’s more like guilty until proven innocent because of the severity of this case.”

“How do you even steal _ energy _ this ain’t a power plant-”

Aizawa stares at him sternly, his previous tolerance towards Bakugou’s consistent interruptions lost in his expression, and Bakugou shuts up, _ not _ because he listens to him, but because he’s capable of reading the mood. “Zeus’ Master Bolt was strong enough to deck Kronos off his feet and into the pits of his consequences; the power itself being god-tiered and capable of destroying the world the way mortal atom bombs do except they make those look like hand-held sparklers,” he fixates a dead gaze on Bakugou. “You have to understand this ordeal is too big and too dangerous for us to consider what's fair or not fair. And let me just say, I understand this is not fair. It isn’t, especially if Midoriya is not the culprit, but ultimately that can’t be our main focus because the sake of humanity and Olympus relies on the location and current wielder of this godly weaponized power.”

Bakugou pats himself on the back for shutting up.

“Aren’t. Aren’t they gods? They’re immortal, I mean I understand how bad the consequences must be especially for mortals, but they can’t like. _ Die. _ Right? Like why are they angry when we should be the ones worried?” Midoriya squeaks, and Bakugou can read between the lines. Just based on what he’s saying, the obvious and unspoken implication is there for his statement to hold truth: that the gods wouldn’t give a shit what happens to mortals in essence. 

Aizawa nods amiably. “They can’t die, right. But remember, their power, this era ruled by them, can. For example, the Golden Age ruled by the Titans, by Kronos, came to an even though they're immortal. We don’t know when this age will end, too, and what will happen to the gods after that,” he replies cryptically, effectively sending Bakugou into his own spiraling thoughts of concepts such as eternity and existence. “Anyways.” He continues like he didn’t just pull a Reddit discussion card on them. “Midoriya, understand that Zeus has probable cause for suspecting your father. During the Winter Solstice, they were arguing-”

“Oh.” And the intense heatwave that completely upturned Japan last year during that time suddenly makes sense. 

“And after that, Zeus found out his bolt went missing, literally right under his nose. Now, Poseidon himself would not do such a thing- it’d break the most Ancient and Divine law-”

“But he broke the bed-” Bakugou begins, only to snap his mouth shut at Aizawa’s glower.

“So it’s believed he sent a human subordinate to steal it in his stead. And then you got claimed,” he nods at Midoriya. “All of these coincidences leading up to _your_ presence, only support this theory.”

“I didn’t even _ know _ Olympus existed until like now, and Winter Solstice was around half a year ago!” Midoriya shrieks. “I _ just _ learned Poseidon was my dad.”

“Yeah, well, that sucks, because we can’t really _ prove _ that, you know,” Aizawa reasons sarcastically. And Bakugou's heard this tone of voice before. When his mom is under stress, especially when it concerns him, her tone grows brittle as she attempts to sound unaffected by the situation around her. 

“But. Do I _ look _ like a thief?” And Bakugou already knows that they’re all thinking the same answer. Kid looks like he’d have an artificially-induced asthma attack if he did something bad. 

“You have to understand, Zeus does not trust Poseidon. There was this one time when Poseidon and Hera trapped him in a golden net, refusing to let him out unless he promised to become a better ruler.”

“That’s one way to do things,” Bakugou murmurs approvingly. Force is always the answer.

“And Zeus hasn’t trusted Poseidon since. And honestly, it’s understandable. Why would he? Poseidon just admitted he broken an oath-”

“As if they all didn’t, c’mon, they’re horny dudes they probably need a godly dick down every once in a while,” Bakugou bites scathingly.

“Don’t call immortal gods horny, _ please _.” Midoriya murmurs.

“And Poseidon just claimed a child of his own that could be a possible weapon against Zeus, or used against him.” Aizawa finishes.

“Deku doesn’t even have the self-preservation instincts to fight for his own life, and you want to convince us he’s somehow a weapon against a god who had his hand on a literal lightning bolt that apparently can take out the world like it’s a speck of dust?” Bakugou snorts.

“Cut Zeus some slack,” Aizawa mutters warningly.

“Isn’t he a consistent serial rapist?” Bakugou narrows his eyes. He knows zilch about western mythology, but he's read poetry on it that his school forces them to analyze. He hadn't forgotten _Leda and the Swan. _Did Bakugou actually knew what the fuck he was reading? Fuck no. But SparkNotes did. “He doesn’t deserve slack.” Thunder smacks in the distant horizon right underneath a perfectly sunny day. Well, fuck him too. 

“Bakugou, that's. That's an important subject. But right now, we also have the entire fate of humanity on our hands and we'll discuss that later. Now that you’ve received the prophecy,” Aizawa continues, "you have to return what was stolen.”

“I didn’t even steal it, how do I return something I don’t have?” Midoriya blubbers, flustered and looking close to returning to his old stammering. Bakugou snorts. “Can I just. Not. Do this? Because I don’t even know_ how _ I’d complete this mission.” And Bakugou thinks the truth is goddamn Deku doesn't know how to do anything, but point still stands.

“I mean. It’s a _ prophecy _ , right?” Bakugou reasons. “Then like. It _ has _ to come true eventually. Though, I’m calling bullshit that everything is fated,” it seems too unlikely. Too convoluted and disturbing. “But if fate and prophecies really do exist, then maybe just start walking around, eventually the prophecy will have to fulfill itself if it really does predict the future.”

Aizawa deadpans him at that. “Do _ not _ start the ‘fate versus free will’ debate right now- that’ll attract philosophers and then we’d never end this conversation.”

“Ew, philosophers,” Bakugou says.

“Also,” Aizawa adds as an afterthought, “we wait too long just thinking the prophecy will fulfill itself, and Zeus might fry Midoriya.”

“Well, compensation, am I right?” Bakugou shrugs nonchalantly.

Aizawa fixes him with a nasty gaze. 

“Does my dad_ really _ have the bolt?” Midoriya mutters dejectedly.

“Honestly, probably not. Thievery isn’t Poseidon’s style,” Aizawa admits.

“Right isn’t it like the,” Bakugou snaps his fingers, recalling how Sero nabbed them necessities for him, even bothering to hand Bakugou a pair of shoes earlier claiming they were embedded with magic, while also saying he ‘stole’ them. “Sero’s dad? What’s his name-”

“Um wait!” Midoriya rambles over him, and Bakugou already has an issue with people talking over him- he hates it even _ more _ that it’s goddamn Deku.

He gives him a strong pass though, since he’s probably having a considerate amount of stress given that _ oh _, the gods think he committed an impudent sin against them because they’re high strung with eighth-grade-syndrome arrogance and a heavy dose of disciplinary absence. “If Poseidon is known to not really be a thief, can’t he just. Reason with Zeus?”

Aizawa shakes his head. “Poseidon isn’t the type to persuade Zeus to believe him- his pride would never allow him.” And that honestly sounds like a him issue, and it _ also _ sounds like a possible solution that could cause this _ whole _ debacle to blow over with minimal effort. But _ no _ , because of his goddamn pride, Poseidon’s instead going to drag this out and bring random ass kids into this entire prophecy, including his own child who looks like a deer that has chronic indigestion. Bakugou has a stubborn sense of pride and would relentlessly find the most pettiest ways to avoid possibly damaging it. But he wouldn’t force _ others _ to handle his own baggage: that’s just equally shameful. “So if you find the bolt, and offer it to Zeus, it’ll clear your father’s name without embarrassing him, and things will blow over. If you don’t return the bolt in his given amount of days,” Aizawa shrugs, wincing, looking for once, almost apologetic. Pitying. “You’ll be the first to face Zeus’ anger.”

Bakugou digests this. “This is bullshit,” and something hot and angry boils in his gallbladder, cramping his entire digestive system with a nasty fever. “What the fuck,” he spits, voice crackling and Aizawa looks at him, mildly concerned and almost surprised, which only _spurs_ his anger because does he just _expect_ Bakugou to be so indifferent to obvious injustice and _unfairness? _Yeah he’s an asshole but he’s not going to force others into his own tempo. He looks down on others too, but he doesn’t _bother_ them. At least not anymore. “Listen, I don’t give a shit about Deku, but what the fuck is this? They’re punishing the camp-” he gestures towards the sky, “_us, _and random mortals because they refuse to solve this on their own when this is_ their_ problem? I don’t give a shit if Zeus has good reason to suspect Deku, that doesn’t validate his behaviour that’s based on goddamn assumption! He’s literally just bullying the weak-” and Bakugou would know something about that. “He-” he chokes. He _hates_ it when people, people who think they’re bigger than others, push them around to get what they want, because they’re fucking babies with their emotions. These people- (_Satoshi_, Satoshi would _always_ pull this fucking bullshit) are-

They’re-

And Bakugou’s_ not _upset he’s just venomous and _ furious- _

“You’re right,” Aizawa replies, voice carefully composed, almost cautious, holding tight onto his real opinions, shrouding the type of person he is in secrecy. Somehow, Bakugou doesn’t know if that makes him even _ more _ angry. “You’re right,” he repeats, this time, firmer.

And that means nothing to Bakugou, when Aizawa’s validation doesn’t do anything to stop this. When his validation doesn’t bring back his mom. When millions of children are abandoned in a world that they can never truly adapt to and can’t even live as children. When his validation won’t stop Deku from facing possible doom over something he didn’t even _ do. _

“How can they treat _ kids _ who literally have nothing to do with this like-” they’re _ disposable. _

And he looks over at Midoriya to beat his ass to make sure he isn’t feeling emotional or god-forbid, _ grateful. _ He _ definitely _ doesn’t want him to think Bakugou’s doing this because he _ likes _ him (and Bakugou’s just calling out on this behaviour because it’s _ wrong. _ Bakugou will not create a standard of morality and kindness for himself, isn’t stupid to take responsibility over having morals, but this is just- this is just a goddamn _ scam _ of parenthood that none of them _ wanted). _

Midoriya just looks at him, countenance crumpled in, unreadable, and he’s _ scared _ (Bakugou at first can’t even clarify to himself who ‘he’ is referring to) _ . _ Bakugou isn’t a coward, isn’t a pussy, is simply just ravaged raw and bleeding with disgust but-

Yeah. He guesses he’d be scared in his position, too.

Who the fuck is Bakugou to judge?

“While the rest of the prophecy is more unclear-” Aizawa begins slowly, voice indescribably different than before.

“Wait, lemme see it first.” Bakugou interjects snappishly, using this as a moment to clear his voice of any hoarseness. He swallows the lump of scalding wet emotions clogging his airway, using this as a moment to quickly erase any of his humiliating outburst.

“Oh, great manners,” Aizawa compliments, though, he surprisingly indulges in his request. Bakugou decides he likes him more than he thought he did. He glances at the paper.

“What the fuck?” He murmurs. “This is some dark BS.” _ Fail to save what matters most _ . But this is for Deku. So it’s really not his problem. Not like he won’t worry, though. Deku is definitely annoying and Bakugou can’t stand him (and if anything- he _ enjoys _ seeing him struggle and stare at the vastness between them, having him learn to _ know his place _ . The devastation in his stupidly foolish expression, the crumpling of his persistent friendliness and niceties signifying to Bakugou that the idiot finally sees the distance between them, that Bakugou is _ not _ his and not his friend-).

But this is something else. This is something above Bakugou’s own disdain for Deku’s personality, somehow overwhelming his internalized problems for him. Overwhelming enough for Bakugou to even worry about him. _ Matters most. _ Knowing Deku and his stupidly righteous self, it’s probably something whose value is high based on ethics or sentiments.

  
  


Like people.

_ Inko-san, perhaps? _ Or maybe even himself. And Bakugou’s not trying to be arrogant when he thinks about himself. While Deku has definitely changed (for the better) as he’s no longer clinging and idolising Bakugou and thinking they’re close, Bakugou’s not stupidly dense. He might refuse their friendship, but he can’t deny the fact that to some extent, Midoriya still regards him as something special. Either out of sentiment for their childhood selves or as someone he’s just known for a long time, Deku sees him as someone different than other friends. _ It makes him feel like he wants to vomit _. While this label of ‘special’ really is atypical from its normal definition, aligning more with terms such as ‘unique’ or ‘strange’, it’s still definitely there, and still very intense.

Midoriya may not like him as he did back then, may actually find him annoying (thank _ god) _, but he still definitely wants to be close with him. 

_ What matters most _. 

He swears to fucking god(s?) that this better not involve him in any sense.

If he ends up dead because of fucking _ Deku _ and his inability to prioritise people who care about him over someone who told him to fling himself off the roof like a Happy Wheel’s character, he’s going to drag that bitch down with him.

He skims the rest of the lines.

He points to the ‘_ betrayed by the one who calls your friend _’ line “this is why I don’t have friends.” Or partners in group projects.

Midoriya fixes an unimpressed look on him. Of course this line would probably bother him a lot- stupidass likes people too much.

“Great. So I guess you three are going on an adventure.” Aizawa finally says, folding the paper and handing it back to Deku, who retrieves it numbly.

Bakugou stares. “Can you fucking not count.”

“Adventure?” Deku murmurs meekly.

“I can count.” Aizawa says sternly. “Can’t you?” And Bakugou’s passed elementary school math. He’s pretty damn sure there are only two assholes. Then, the space between him ripples, and Bakugou, thinking that maybe he magically has windshield wipers streaking antifreeze over his eyelids, blinks.

And within that blink, the third asshole appears.

“Hey.” Two-Day Old Used Tampon says.

“Oh, Todoroki!” Midoriya, the socially warped bitch greets, beaming, looking insultingly relieved after seeing him. Todoroki nods absent-mindedly in response, like an e-boy whose brain cells are suffering through a sudden economic inflation.

“Todoroki wants to come with you.” Aizawa jerks a thumb over.

"Why do you like slut-shaming the gods?" Todoroki asks Bakugou directly.

"Not even a greeting?" Bakugou leers. "And I do _not_ slut-shame the gods, I just think they don't have responsible sex-"

"Okay. I've never encountered this type of problem or conversation before in my thousands of years of living." Aizawa intervenes dryly. "And I don't want to have this conversation for another couple thousand years either. Bakugou Katsuki, I can't tell if I just have extraordinarily low standards for you because I don't know how else you're constantly breaking every expectation."

"Hell yeah." Bakugou replies casually. 

"Breaking my expectations does not necessarily mean exceeding them, Bakugou."

"Hell yeah."

Aizawa looks very close to stomping on every bone in Bakugou's body until it grinds into dust for fertilizer. "Anyways. Like I said, Todoroki wants to come with you two." 

“I don’t.” Bakugou says. He stalls. “Wait what the fuck, why do _ I _have to go? Bitch?” He frowns, brows pinching together into a deep furrow.

“You can stay here if you want,” Aizawa shrugs, indifferent. “Personally, you could easily die heading out. For your safety, I shouldn't let you out. But I feel like you’re somehow a part of this prophecy too, and it’s usually disastrous to purposefully try and defy fate.”

Bakugou thinks.

He looks at Deku who’s the source of his impending heart disease and desensitized nervous system, before glancing at the equally brain numbed Todoroki, and realises that there are hundreds of kids here whose idiocy is carbon-copy of his.

At least Deku, though they aren't compatible, annoyingly_ knows _what Bakugou likes, and is aware of his low social tolerance. And more importantly, there’s only one of him, in comparison to the entire camp.

He purses his lips.

Either all those campers, or just with Deku. And Todobitch, he guesses.

Two of them, then. Though, if he closes his eyes and relies on the fact that their IQs equate to a singular brain cell, he can probably simplify it to just one really annoying being than two individual party members. 

“Fine, I’m coming.” He spits. Besides, he doesn’t want to stay here longer than he already has. “Why is he coming?” He jerks a thumb at the humanoid Hamburger Helper mascot. 

“I want him to come!” Midoriya says directly.

“I don’t.”

“I do.” Aizawa interjects. “You two are demigods. Monsters will definitely be after you. At the very least, I need Midoriya to stay alive. Todoroki has combat experience."

“Oh, thanks,” Bakugou says dryly. 

“Todoroki is skilled in long and short distance fighting. If you take someone like him along with you, then maybe at least a third of you guys will come back alive.”

“Yeah, me.” Todoroki says. “I’m the ‘third’.”

“Hey. Midoriya is probably a part of the Great Prophecy, keep _ him _alive at minimal.” Aizawa clicks his tongue, annoyed. “Make sure two-thirds of you guys come back.” He rehashes his demands. 

Bakugou, thinking that it’s fine because he can take care of himself, really doesn’t feel strange about this weird reluctant favouritism that Aizawa is displaying. Actually, he distinctly pities him since he talks to Midoriya like he’s the source of all his current stress.

“What's the Great Prophecy?” Bakugou asks, in spite of his pride that wants him to shut up and appear heavily indifferent.

“It’s like. A prophecy. But great.” Aizawa elaborates the same way that Bakugou’s sixth grade science teacher did with photosynthesis.

"Really?" Bakugou replies, deadpanned.

Aizawa sighs. “Todoroki?”

He nods curtly with annoying, goody two-shoes obedience, then even worse, begins to speak. _ “A half-blood of the eldest gods-” _

“Wait what the fuck.” Bakugou says.

_ “Shall reach sixteen against all odds,” _and even Midoriya stares at him for that.

“_ And see the world in endless sleep,” _he continues reciting, and Bakugou is pretty damn sure Todoroki does not have a personality. So realizing he's really Dr. Seussing it up in this place is really making him lose his shit.

_ “The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap; a single choice shall end his days,” _ and Bakugou raises his brows at that. Unfortunate.

_ “Olympus to preserve or raze.” _He waits. He then realises Todoroki has finished his slam poetry debut. 

“I was wholly unprepared and after hearing that, I realized I never would've been." Midoriya finally says, mildly stunned into disbelief.

"What the fuck was that?" Bakugou scorns. 

“The Great Prophecy,” Aizawa answers.

“Wait. What the fuck. So literally the whole end of the world, twenty-twenty style, is riding on the decision of one hypothetically hormonal teenager who finally hit sixteen? What the _ fuck _-”

“I mean, in a dramaticized sense, that’s like how most world leaders’ decisions go,” Midoriya shrugs.

“Shut the _ fuck _ up I don’t need your educated, self-entitled quantum physics talk,” Bakugou spits, and turns to Aizawa. “And this has something to do with _ Deku? _ Bitch hasn’t even hit _ puberty.” _

And Midoriya, who has the personality of a sack of wet pinecones, has the fucking _ gall _ to look mildly offended as if Bakugou isn’t right. “You think he has something to do with this gReAt pRopHesY which sounds like the fucking plot of _ 2012? _” 

“Unfortunately,” Aizawa answers, utterly unperturbed by Bakugou’s behaviour. “Anyways. Midoriya. How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Oh. So we have to keep you alive for at least a year,” Todoroki calculates quickly.

Midoriya looks vaguely unsettled by this.

“Wait. How does this have _ anything _ to do with Deku? This absolute pisscunt has to _ decide _ whether or not an entire religion-” thunderclouds rumble in the distance, “fine, world, reality, whatever,” he mutters, and _ god _ are gods pretentious (then again, they _ are _ immortals who’s seen the rise and fall of life and this entire world, and Bakugou is just a kid with a laughable fifteen years, so fair enough). “So we see how the world ends up depending on a single authoritative decision made by someone with the mentality of an untoasted Poptart?” He scoffs. “What is this? Those cults that follow a reincarnated, self-proclaimed Jesus” He laughs, incredulity completely disorientating any ability he even had to navigate a single social situation. He’s now utterly relying on instinctive anger and relying on replies he’s always had on shorthand like this is some Animal Crossing conversation with auto-generated responses. "You _sure_ it's Deku? Like out of _everyone_ they really just chose _him?"_

“I mean. The prophecy directly states ‘elder god’ and that's Midoriya's dad. It’s in the first line,” Todoroki says, and Bakugou _ knows _ he’s being mocked, even if the kid literally sounds as flat as a washboard. Then he looks him directly in the eye. “Maybe if you listened, rather than started shouting, you would’ve caught it.”

“Maybe if you had shut up, I wouldn’t have been shouting,” he retorts sharply. “Anyways, fucking fungi dolt,” he continues.

“I literally didn’t say anything,” Midoriya throws his hands up.

However, Bakugou has lost interest, and he had merely called him out due to previous hard-to-break habits of randomly startling Deku. Now, he's thinking about something else.

“You know. We can always just delay this sudden Biblical-end-of-the-world fate by just straight up offing Deku right now,” he finally vocalizes his thoughts.

Aizawa stares at him.

Midoriya doesn’t even appear surprised, and if anything, seems to be contemplating it himself.

Todoroki looks exactly the same as he did when Bakugou met him: annoyingly blank with a personality that's a stale smoothie of social development issues blended with eight different variations of Xanax. 

“Yeah, so no.” Aizawa musters a response.

“I think we might as well get it over with by going through with the prophecy,” Todoroki shrugs. “Might as well see the possible end of the world in our lifetime.”

“Can I just. This like prophecy right _ now _ isn’t tied with the Great Prophecy, though." Bakugou asks. "...right?”

“Hard to say. I mean. Every decision affects the future,” Aizawa shrugs.

“Should I just opt out?” He finally muses out loud. See, fine. Find a quest, find out more about his mom. But he doesn’t know if he wants to be a part of a literal End of the World quest.

“I mean. You can. But who knows, solving this might mean the gods might grant you something. Since your mom probably isn’t dead, we can probably do something about it. Asking the gods for insight or information would be valuable, especially since you’d be dealing in something you don’t understand.”

Bakugou scoffs. “The gods would grant me something? Wouldn’t it be Deku at the very least? And _ no Deku I don’t want your fucking selfless help.” _

Midoriya sighs. “Kacchan. I understand you hate my guts for some unknown elementary school reason-”

_ “Deku you piece of shit don’t invalidate how _ annoying _ you are on some childish emotions-” _

“But this is for your _ mom _. Just put aside your hate for me and realise I wouldn’t do this for you, I would do this for Bakugou-san.”

And Bakugou is going to hit him with a sock stuffed with a brick.

Until he decides, you know, Deku is a lot less annoying this way. When he sounds _ done _, he almost sounds respectable. 

And for a mortifying second, he nearly grins.

“Fine.”

“So...did you guys just make up your entire childhood years of petty dislike?” Aizawa says, sounding less impressed than Bakugou currently is. “Because if so, I’m going to send you on your way.”

And at first Bakugou thought he meant to brunch or some shit but then Deku squeaks- “wait. Listen, we didn’t even get through the _ actual _ quest we’re on. Like. You want us to find a _ lightning _ bolt? We didn’t even go over _ how _ and that was our first question!”

“I- hold up,” Bakugou’s hit with a realization like someone swung a stone disk at his skull for target practice. “Do you mean the quest is starting right now? We _barely_ survived the hellhound and you're just going to toss us out into the real world like this, and our only defense is _ him?” _ Bakugou gestures wildly at Todoroki, who just looks at him impassively. And sure, he has his own ‘thanks for nothing’ gift from his dad through his weaponized hands, and Deku, a wimp he’s _ pretty _ sure couldn’t swim until he was twelve can now play Avatar with water, but Aizawa is asking _ a lot _ from both of them right now. “I mean. This bitch literally has no reason to keep _ me _ alive. He would probably off me first!” He points accusingly at Todoroki, who shrugs. “Also why can he disappear? Why is no one questioning how he was invisible?"

“It’s because of this,” Todoroki answers his question and _yeah_ Bakugou did call him out on it, but now that he's actually answering, Bakugou can't help but feel even _more_ annoyed. Todoroki waves a hat in his grasp.

“What the fuck is that.” 

“It’s cute,” Midoriya comments reassuringly.

“It used to be my friend’s,” Todoroki answers, looking very out of place with his completely braindead expression and extremely vibrant, smiling Pikachu cap that is the colour of glowstick fluid. “It turns me invisible.”

Bakugou stares a bit longer at the bright neon yellow. “You sure it doesn’t do the opposite?” he finally says.

“Anyways, I would normally not send anyone out on missions or prophesies unless they're qualified, because I Really Do Not want to be responsible for the death of children like some really bad ringleader,” Aizawa admits. “However, this stolen item is _ Zeus _’ property, and the longer we wait, the worst his favour will turn to us.”

“I mean yeah but if we die, then same conclusion,” Bakugou frowns. “Why does he need it back so soon? There’s no way the three of us will probably even _ find _ it. Like even if he thinks Deku stole it even though he cried and snitched on me when I shoplifted a pack of gum when I was a kid-”

Midoriya doesn’t look remorseful at all.

“If we both died, it’s not like he’s going to get the stolen item back then,” Bakugou scrunches his nose. “Can’t he just manufacture another bolt?”

“The issue isn’t just whether or not he has it, it’s the idea that whoever has the bolt can wield its power.” Aizawa explains. “Zeus is giving you ten days, when the summer solstice hits.”

“This is stupid.” Bakugou finally says. “I. C’mon. We don’t even know where to _ go. _ Like what are we going to do once we step out?” He sputters. He then has a moment to calm down from his flare of anger.

Said flare of anger is nothing in comparison to the way his blood rushes so fast to his head that he nearly blacks out. “Wait. Did you just say ten days.” And he doesn’t have it in him to even sound surprised nor questioning. 

“Ten _ days _ ?” Midoriya echoes, something almost manic sharpening the end of his words. “I. _ Why?” _

“He wants his bolt soon. Like. Ten days soon.” Todoroki asks, as if reaffirming this out of disbelief. And if even this guy, who looks like he halfasses life for the most part, is now attentive, then _ shit _ this must be bad.

“What the _ fuck _ what is this? An office deal? This is impossible!” Bakugou clicks his tongue.

“Yeah I know right.” Aizawa responds.

Bakugou stares.

“Shouldn’t you say something more reassuring?” Midoriya licks his lips.

“Like what? That you’re actually going to find it in that amount of time?” He smirks, sounding almost amused.

Bakugou’s going to crochet his esophagus.

“So I guess we really have to go find it like now.” Midoriya swallows nervously, and Bakugou can’t even call him out on being a pussy because his concern is _ rather _ valid and understandable right now. “Where? How do we even _ start _ this?”

“Well, Hades probably took the bolt for one.” Aizawa finally admits, clearing absolutely fuck nothing up. 

“Wait what.”

“You just answered our question with even more questions.” Midoriya informs faintly.

“In your prophecy, you mentioned a god in the west. Most likely, it'd be Hades, given he’s one of the Big Three, and therefore the most powerful candidate to take over the throne in Olympus if his brothers were to distract each other in war. Also, he’s bound to be resentful over the fact that his brothers broke the oath they made after War World Two.” And Bakugou has no idea what that is, but Midoriya appears to, as he builds off of this:

“Wait. Both of his brothers? So even Zeus?” And the oath they’re referring to is obviously the no-baby-daddy oath.

Aizawa just nods grimly, and Bakugou rolls his eyes at the gods’ own mess, when in the midst of doing so, his eyes accidentally fixate onto Todoroki.

He pauses.

Todoroki’s staring hard at his hat, glaring into its soulless eyes as if Pikachu has personally insulted him.

_ Weirdo. _

“But aren’t all the gods in the west? How do we know it’s Hades?” Bakugou inquires, deciding that he’s just going to ignore that Shounen Santa Claus. 

“Think about the hellhound,” Aizawa begins. “Monsters actually can’t escape past the barrier- we only said they could to avoid stirring animosity amongst the campers. Monsters must be summoned to enter,” and Bakugou thought nothing could chill him by this point. Not after mom. Yet the implications of his words scores the back of his throat with frost burn. "If campers knew that, they would never trust each other, because that meant the people they live with brought in a monster that could've killed one of them. Because none of them are lost on dealing with monsters."

“And hellhounds specifically, must be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, which is located in Hades’ realm,” Todoroki expounds. “Most likely Hades has a spy within our camp to do that. Also, on a side note, since he deals with souls, reincarnation and all that, after seeing your mother collected, I do believe he had something to do with all this.” He explains.

“This feels completely unfair.” Bakugou attempts to say flippantly, but something shakier, more vulnerable than anger (than fear) has already taken root at the base of his words, and he flinches. He storms his way through his fragility with characteristic loudness, shouting his next words as if Aizawa could answer them, as if brute force and a hoarse throat could flush out the bitter aftertaste of exposing weakness. “Why was my mom dragged into this? She has nothing to do with this, and not even through me because I’m not a part of this prophecy anyways!” And he feels almost bad for complaining, when Deku right next to him is quiet with glassy eyes, mirroring Bakugou’s own disgust. But he’s stepped too far into the murky black lake whose surface blends with the similarly never-ending stretch of dark thundering skies. He’s pretty sure he miscalculated the depth of his ugly sea of emotions. Because trudged forward confidently, only to plunge into the abyss. 

He drowns (and Bakugou’s too consumed by the ink outlining furious and hysterical scratches of his indecipherable feelings, those nonsensical hieroglyphs stamping over any compassion he has for Midoriya).

“Bakugou, I’m pretty sure by this point you can tell that many gods tend to see human lives as disposable and not their problems,” Aizawa replies flatly. Then his voice changes: “there’s no logic that aligns with mortals’ morals, nor a reasonable answer for your question.” It’s pity. He’s _ pitying _ him (and Bakugou can’t _ stand _ pity, can’t stand how pity comes in typical forms of patronization or like now, _ helplessness; _ pity is only handed to those who can’t be helped, to those who can’t do anything. And if that’s the case, then Aizawa’s pity is simply just confirmation that there’s nothing that can be _ done _ for his mom-). 

“Jerks.” Midoriya whispers. That’s an understatement.

Aizawa smiles wainly, offering an unspoken apology that he shouldn’t have to give (but does anyways, because clearly gods never take responsibility over their own shit, leaving people like Aizawa to clean up after them).

“So,” and now Aizawa reverts back to sounding business-like. “On the very likely assumption Hades has a hand in all this, and therefore a part in the Master Bolt’s disappearance, you guys have to head to the Underworld to uncover the truth and retrieve the bolt.” Aizawa summarizes.

“Great, cool, just head to the Underworld-” Midoriya blathers but Bakugou’s _ smart _ so he’s thinking and he’s thinking about-

_ Mom. _His previous anger, his previous ocean of black becomes a bathtub filled to the brim, his house’s bathtub before it collected dust and insect skeletons over years of neglect.

(And the thought of his mom invites the woman in question in. He watches behind the rim of the bathtub filled with congealed adulthood, tarred and inky, as she walks over and pulls the plug of the tub's dean before the substance could cover his head. And like the emotions, his thoughts leak out).

_ She has to be in the Underworld. _ This is a possibility, a chance, and he can retrieve his mom and-

_ Hades is a god. _

_ Bakugou Katsuki. This is past even _ your ego. _ This is fucking desperation _ because you are talking about defying a _god._

You? _ You’re not just a kid who recently learned about this separate world- _ you’re also a mortal.

He swallows.

As if he gives a shit. What else does he have to depend on other than reckless fury and unintentionally suicidal determination?

“Poseidon already conspires that it’s their third brother trying to place a rift between him and Zeus considering the threes’ authority and their already present sibling rivalry,” and so what Bakugou is hearing is that one of the gods is throwing a fit because their brother stole their XBox controller. Except the XBox controller is wired with immortal powers that only LSD can think of touching the realm of, and could similarly destroy the human race with one, swift, usage. “So he has positive beliefs on the outcome of you guys’ quest."

“Why would Hades do this, though? You made the argument it’s so he can create an opportunity to take over Olympus, but _ why? _ He has the _ underworld _ which honestly, is probably arguably way more powerful than other realms.” Midoriya asks in disbelief. 

“I mean. The notoriety of the underworld is a powerful influence. Hades could believe he got the worst hand of the deal, which would make him envious of his brothers’ thrones.” Todoroki theorizes.

“That’s fucking stupid. Isn’t he a _ god? _ Shouldn’t all of them have different conceptions than mortals who dislike the underworld because we _ are _ mortals and fear the unknown, such as death?” Bakugou snorts. “Why would Hades care about the notoriety of the underworld, especially when this stigma is only due to humans who fear death?”

Aizawa looks at him curiously, almost thoughtfully. “Todoroki, Hades isn’t the type to feel entirely jealous over power, and rather finds contentment in his own successes. However, he and his brothers fight a _ lot _, and have a lot of resentment over broken oaths, promises, ego, and power.” He pauses, eyes flickering. “Though, I won’t claim to understand Hades or his psyche. We can just deduce it’s him because we know it’s not Poseidon, as I doubt he’d do something so risky and then claim his own son right afterwards. Meanwhile, I can only see Hades to be any other god who has enough confidence against Zeus. And Bakugou, you’re right, Hades does not particularly care about mortals’ opinions on him. However, he cares about the gods’. He’s not respected by his own brothers, especially Zeus, because of his rule over the Underworld. They look down upon him.”

“So this is all just politics?” Bakugou summarizes.

“Possibly. I don’t see any other reason.”

“What the fuck, so why don’t they just. Talk it out, especially if they have strong suspicion over shit. Like. They are _ brothers _ . I don’t care if they can easily crack each others’ skulls with some Goku shit, why they gotta use us?” And Bakugou’s _ not _being petty. He’s indignant because this is literally some fucked up manipulative shit.

“Because gods can’t cross onto each others’ territories. Another Divine, Ancient oath-” And Bakugou’s tired of hearing that. It sounds like the gods do whatever the fuck they want anyways, why they gotta start talking about _ rules _as if they hold themselves up to those standards? “But heroes, ones granted with prophecies, have privileges that allow them to travel and complete them. Which is why Poseidon claimed you,” he nods at Midoriya. “You’re the only one who can see Hades and settle the feud and clear his name.”

Midoriya stares at him numbly. “So. So Poseidon is just. My _ dad _ is desperate.” And sure, Deku can straight-up call his powerful water god of a father ‘desperate’, without the heavens darkening, but Bakugou can’t legally call the gods cowards or sexual assaulters without Zeus trying to one-shot him. “So he’s just _ using _ me. After he abandoned me with my mom and-” his voice pitches hysterically, a wry vibrato stitched with something painful. Bakugou cringes as he watches an expression of amusement and disbelief thread Midoriya’s lips shut into a twisted, wain grimace. “So he’s _ using me after abandoning me and my mom-” _

Bakugou looks away, and he’s _ not _ horrified, and he’s not upset and he’s definitely not close to crying at how shitty this situation is.

He sees how Todoroki’s staring harder at his hat, and he ignores how the boy’s tight grip almost seems to be trembling. He tells himself it’s the side-effect of his own concentrated twitchiness that’s blurring his vision.

Aizawa doesn’t say anything to defend the gods, and that’s the only comfort he gives.

“And I can’t even say _ no _ to this quest, can I?” Midoriya snorts, a glitchy smile that’s unnatural and inhumane twists his features. “Can I? Don’t tell me I have a choice in all this when failure means the end of _ humanity _.”

Aizawa looks at him, and Bakugou knows the words he says next are meant for comfort: “no, you really don’t have a choice, do you?” Because it’s easier to believe that you don't have a choice, especially when doing something you don’t want to do. 

Bakugou does not look at Midoriya as he shudders and collapses into a crouch, an inorganic anger ripping through his curled figure in the form of silent shivers.

Bakugou hasn't heard Deku cry in a long time. Last time was when he wanted to hear Deku cry, a vicious need him for Deku to give _any_ indication of remorse for ever talking to Bakugou.

Listening to it again after such a long dry spell, he can’t fathom as to why he ever liked hearing it in the first place. 

* * *

“Wait I feel like we just got scammed into this.” Bakugou’s grip on his borrowed sword tightens. As if knowing Bakugou’s glaring at him from outside the barrier, Aizawa’s figure looks over, and distinctly flips him off.

Fucker.

“Yeah. I mean. Let’s be real, what mortal isn’t?” Deku says hollowly. Todoroki doesn’t even say anything. 

Bakugou’s realized something: the fucker is rather suspiciously quiet whenever they badmouth the gods.

He suspects that Todoroki doesn’t hold major spite against the gods. Now, he doesn’t retain stupid information, so he doesn’t recall the boy’s parental god, but he supposes that asshole is partial to them or whatever, as that’d explain his silence. Or, Todoroki just doesn’t have a strong opinion for or against them. Because he doesn’t seem to give a shit about what others think about him, so it’s not like he’d have an incentive to keep his thoughts to himself if he had any. 

“And _ he’s _ here, too,” Bakugou gestures at Kirishima, who beams at being acknowledged for the first time after Bakugou ignored him for the past hour. “He kept saying ‘three’ people but there are literally _ five-” _ he gestures at the other newcomer radically _ . _He can’t believe Aizawa had the audacity to question Bakugou’s counting abilities. 

“It’s because I’m actually accustomed to western society, so think of me as your tour guide,” Ponytail replies calmly.

Bakugou squints.

He’ll let her off for now. 

“Besides, I’m in charge of the money,” she hums, holding up the small matryoshka doll-shaped purse full of their mortal money and golden drachmas (_ real gold, holy shit) _ that Bakugou got a peek of and nearly flipped. They were the size of his goddamn fist.

“Oh, oh!” Kirishima hums. “I have all the mortal food,” he says proudly.

He stares expectantly at Bakugou.

Bakugou stares back.

He doesn’t blink.

Bakugou sighs. “Wow,” he says dryly, “good job.” It's not like the rest of them aren't holding backpacks to carry food as well.

Kirishima laughs, sounding very much amused by his obvious disdain. Shithead. And people can tell him that kids like Kirishima and Midoriya are innocent and ‘good’, but the reality is they’re both internalized closeted sadists that find amusement in everything including the suffering of Bakugou Katsuki.

* * *

“Oh my god.” Midoriya whispers, knuckles flushed red from the tightness of his clench around his _ My Little Pony _ backpack straps. “This is real life.”

“We’re literally going to die,” Bakugou clicks his tongue indifferently. “And what the fuck, he gives us a paper map to _ L.A.? _ Who can even _read_ this?"

“I mean. Geographically, considering how things have been shifting west, it makes sense that the Underworld’s entrance is probably located around that area.” Goddamn peppermint Gogurt expounds. “And you heard him- cellphones and GPS are traceable by monsters.” And that doesn't even make _ sense. _

“No!” Bakugou’s voice pitches, incredulity at the absolute stupidity of that logic tearing a laugh through his words. “What the fuck, don’t try to apply reasoning to this bullshit magic. Why the _ fuck _ is there apparently just an _ entrance _ into the Underworld? That makes absolutely no _ sense _ and don’t get me _ started _ on the idea of monsters using _ Wi-Fi-” _

“So I guess we go to the nearest bus stop? I remember seeing one while we were walking by,” Midoriya says, absolutely immune to Bakugou’s shouting, and Bakugou’s going to shoot him. 

“Yep! This will be so much fun,” Kirishima hums, and Bakugou hates him too.

“Pretty sure they’ll drop us to a nearest airport, especially since we have like ten days-” Midoriya murmurs.

Kirishima, Ponytail and Todoroki all stop in place at this, and Midoriya glances at Bakugou, as if he knows what the fuck is going on.

“Your father’s current and biggest rival is the sky god, Midoriya,” Todoroki intervenes curtly.

Bakugou sees the exact moment Midoriya’s cognizant functioning collapses like its own malfunctioning blister, his eyeballs shattering like bulbs as the light dies out of his eyes.

“So. Over land,” Midoriya clears his throat, laughing nervously. “Ha. Yeah. Travelling over land. In Ten days. Ten days, travelling over land, to reach _ Los Angeles. _Then go to hell. Find a lighting bolt and return it. In ten days.”

"Better than starting off in Japan and having to find your way to America. Geez, I can't even imagine the turbulence you must've faced when you arrived here. Or did you guys take a boat? Makes more sense since Midoriya's dad is-" Kirishima blathers, but Bakugou halted the moment he started talking.

"We didn't take boat," Bakugou informs numbly, mind racing a thousandth of a second and still concurring absolutely fucking nothing.

Kirishima blinks, startled, before smiling once more. "Oh! So you really took a plane? And Zeus _let_ you guys?"

"I. We didn't take a plane." Midoriya says, looking viscerally distraught, clearly dawning on the same realization as Bakugou. _How the fuck did they get here?_

"Oh. So. How did you arrive then? Must've been an adventure? I mean, you guys have to travel across _sea_ you know," Kirishima attempts to salvage the bits of this conversation.

But Bakugou's currently flipping through his memories, as if trying to locate the fucking _reason_ because- 

They were in Japan.

There's absolutely _no_ explanation as to why they're suddenly in another _country_. He- "We didn't. We were _driving_ from Bakugou-san's car I don't. I don't know how we arrived in America because Japan's an island-" and Deku's voice is wobbly, and now, their other group members are staring at them. Ponytail appears calculative while Kirishima seems almost concerned.

"That's not. I never heard of that before," Ponytail finally replies.

"I mean," Bakugou licks his lips. "Whatever."

"Really, that's all you have to say on that?" Todoroki asks.

"What's it to you?" He shoots back. "Clearly, if you guys don't have an answer and I don't have an answer, then we're not going to find one no matter how hard we worry about it. No point in accumulating more stress when we have actual shit to accomplish. Thinking harder isn't going to give us an answer if it never existed in our heads in the first place," Bakugou shrugs unbothered. He doesn't have time for this. 

"No but doesn't that mean someone _knew_ we were demigods if they called us here I mean-" Midoriya laughs nervously. "What the heck? This doesn't make _sense!"_

"Deku, you fucking idiot, nothing makes sense." Bakugou replies shortly.

But before they can end up dealing with Deku’s sudden midlife crisis at the tedious age of fifteen, they reach the end of the camp’s hill grounds.

Parked nearby, is a small mini van. He frowns. Standing next to it, is an adult. Possibly their driver.

He squints.

More than a hundred eyes squint back at him.

Those eyes peeking out from underneath the man’s suit sleeves, his collar, and the skin between his pant hems and socks weren’t there earlier.

Bakugou realizes queasily, they must've been closed shut.

Whatever.

He waves listlessly, and the man(?) smiles back. Seems friendly enough.

Bakugou heads to the passenger seat, ready to call shotgun to avoid sitting with the other creeps, when he glances upwards to see the others hadn’t followed him. 

Todoroki had stopped by the end of the hill, where a gnarled and knotted tree is rooted next to the shimmery barrier that appears almost opaque and tangible to his eyes. The weirdo then pats one of the branches, almost affectionately like it’s a pet or some shit.

What the fuck. 

Then he sees _ Ponytail _, the sane one, also stroke one of the branches, while Kirishima punches the actual trunk of the tree almost like a really bad and very painful fist bump.

He rolls his eyes.

_ Vegans. _

* * *

“Oh my god we’re going to die.” Midoriya suddenly squeaks from the back.

Bakugou, annoyingly enough, tears his gaze from the road ahead of him lined with mortal things (and there’s even a McDonalds. He went to one the day before and he thinks about how there’s a completely flip side world that just coexisted with him and he never _ noticed _-). “This again?” He sighs, glancing into the rear mirror to see Midoriya curl in on himself between Kirishima and Todoroki.

“It’s almost like he’s underneath a lot of stress due to the pressures of an immortal world and god threatening him with punishment, Bakugou,” Todoroki deadpans, clasping eyes with him in the reflection.

Bakugou flips him off, making sure his finger is in the mirror. 

“Anyways,” Kirishima cuts Midoriya off purposefully, thank god. “Midoriya, Aizawa taught you how to use Riptide, yes?”

“I mean you can’t really teach a person how to use a sword in like two hours-” Ponytail murmurs uneasily from her solo middle seat. “Ah, if only we had more time to _ prepare.” _

“As if he would waste that much time on you in the first place,” Bakugou says, before ignoring them. 

"Well. It'll be fine, you have us," Kirishima reassures brightly. "But Riptide is a special blade. Turns into a pen and teleports to its owner-"

"Yeah. Aizawa-sensei told me it had many owners before me..." As the backseats’ voices bleed with the crashing ocean beside him, furious and dark (and Deku’s _ dad _ controls that-), Bakugou refuses to look on his right, where the Minotaur was. Just earlier, they passed by the spot where he knew the wreckage of their car was collected.

He glares at the ground.

_ Japan, to _ America. And he wasn't paying attention when his mom was driving. Everything was a terrifying blur, everything didn't make _sense_, and they just suddenly ended up at a beach.

He doesn't know when it transitioned from an island to another wholeass country.

And right now, the roads ahead of him appear _normal_ and unidentifiable, but it's not like the roads back with his mom were familiar, either.

“-your sword is special too.” He blearily gazes out the front window. “Bakugou.” And Bakugou jolts. He takes a moment to realise that comment was directed at him. “The sword that you picked from our weapon closet, it's forged out of celestial bronze.” He swivels his nasty glower upwards into the rear mirror again, tacking it onto fucking downgraded Waldo. His lips knot into an even tighter scowl. “Your sword can’t hurt humans, is what I’m trying to say,” Todoroki concludes.

Bakugou takes a second, silence cultivating between them.

Then he screams.

_ “THEN WHAT’S THE FUCKING POINT-” _

The car jerks sharply, nearly swerving into the opposite lane next to him. 

  
  


“Is he okay?” Inquires Ponytail

“No. Kacchan’s just understandably upset that the only thing that was going for him, which was having a sword, can't even be used against everyone.”

“Oh.” Todoroki replies.

Bakugou screams even louder.

* * *

“He’s calmed down.” Todoroki narrates as they leave the car, bowing and waving to the driver who’s apparently named Argus. Bakugou tries not to hold Todoroki’s awful insight against him, as he tells himself the fucking fruitcake's observational skills have the depth of a rain puddle, and therefore, it’s not really him being frustrating, it’s just his idiocy and Bakugou must be the bigger man here and not judge him based off that.

“I didn’t know it’s possible for him to be this quiet,” Todoroki continues as their chauffeur drives away.

Bakugou inhales.

Fuck being the bigger person.

And right at the bus stop where three older grannies are walking towards them to witness this, he shoves Todoroki onto the road and straight in front of the upcoming bus.

“Kacchan, _ NO-” _

* * *

“Kacchan, seriously, the busdriver almost didn’t let us on because you basically attempted first degree murder,” Midoriya groans.

“And I’ll do it again if you continue rambling,” Bakugou snaps.

“Whoa, super bold!” Kirishima beams, and Bakugou’s going to file his teeth down with pavement if he continues doing that weird twitchy thing with his mouth. Smiling's for losers. Kirishima thinks this is funny. He thinks _ everything _ is amusing.

He’s already pissed.

While waiting for Ponytail to negotiate with the bus driver to let him on while pretending like he didn’t attempt straight up homicide, he noticed on the bus stop, a taped wanted poster.

His fucking face was on it. And his ma. 

And there, underneath it, was his home phone number, and a description that automatically shot him in the face: _son, Bakugou Katsuki, Japanese, 172cm, spotted in America near Long County Island, dangerous and volatile child. Sounds like a donkey. Blonde spiky hair, red eyes, around 170cm (5'7) and 81kg (180lbs). Stole my wife and wrecked my Subaru minivan with silver paint and license plate XX1X. Call this number if seen:_ _5088477241, or email: xxxx@gmail.com._

Bakugou crumpled up the sign and nearly ate it. Fuck Satoshi. Now he’s probably on national news if somehow _ America _ knows about him and Satoshi knew he was here.

Shuffling aside, Bakugou gestures for the three ladies who were right behind them to take a seat. They’re all standing and using the handlebars, anyways. 

“Oh, that’s really pretty!” Midoriya suddenly gasps, and Bakugou glances over, realizing he’s talking to the people behind them, while the rest of their stupid carpool group is in the front, discussing plans with each other. He realises Midoriya’s complimenting one of the grannies’ projects. They’re knitting. Bakugou frowns slightly.

_ Knitting? _

It doesn’t-

He shuts his eyes, fatigue from stress draining his energy. And he opens them. Weaving. They’re weaving something. With long fingernails (claws?) _ no- _needles. Who fingerknits such a complex pattern, anyways? 

They’re performing really pretty craftsmanship- even though the colours seem to glitch, almost appearing pixelated given the pattern, fuzzy on the eyes (and can he just not focus?)

He frowns at that. There’s something off, but he can’t tell what.

“Oh, thank you,” chuckles the lady, voice raspy.

Bakugou glances warily.

He doesn’t like her voice, as rude as that is.

He looks ahead. “We have enough American dollars to get through this, right?” Bakugou murmurs. “American buses are basically the same as Japan’s, right?"

At this, Kirishima freezes and Todoroki’s eyes widen.

Holy shit.

“Don’t tell me none of you guys know how to ride a bus here.” Bakugou hisses, voice distorted with concern and fucking amazement at absolutely how _ stupid _ they are. Except for Ponytail- he hasn’t felt an incessant urge to jam her colon through a sewing machine.

“Um. No. I lived in America for a good portion of my teenage years, I’m fluent in English-” Todoroki begins.

“So am I, asshole. Duolingo is free,” he spits. That, and also he grew up learning English, as that was a common language most schools offered to teach, the consistency being necessary given that he’s always transferring schools. “I’m asking if any of you guys know how western society _ works.” _

Three kids with Bambi eyes blink back at him, and Ponytail just slowly raises her hand. 

Bakugou’s going to kill someone, and for the sake of not just them but for humanity itself, they better hope he offs himself first.

“You,” he points at Ponytail, his last hope and probably their last conceptual brain neuron as well.

“We’ll be fine,” she replies curtly, glancing at him warily. He bares his teeth.

I mean. I attended school here. But I never had to ride the bus,” Todoroki shrugs.

“I watched a lot of Cartoon Network, and all that taught me was that I was probably being bullied for most of my childhood,” fucking Deku answers.

Bakugou looks at him. “I will bash your head in like a flower pot.”

“See, I don’t know much of anything,” Kirishima confesses shamelessly. “That’s why we have Momo!” He grins, gesturing at Ponytail, who smiles shyly. So _ that’s _ her name. 

“I lived in America for most of my life, I can navigate us down to hell,” she says cheerfully, more lax probably because Kirishima has a drugging effect on people.

Bakugou hates both of them already.

“Don’t worry, in America, you don’t need to a tourist to find something like hell,” Kirishima jokes.

A snicker.

He stiffens at the unwarranted laugh, and glances about to locate the source of such an odd noise. They’re speaking in Japanese there’s no way someone heard that joke and understood it-

Almost instinctively, his pupils flit to the bottom left of their corners, trembling over the figures of the three ladies. None of them are even looking in his general direction.

“I don’t like them.” He blurts, barely catching himself in time to reduce his words into a whisper. 

Kirishima, for the first time since Bakugou’s met him, looks utterly destroyed. “You don’t like old people?”

“I- _ no _ you absolute shaved walnut-”

“Wait, who?” Ponytail hisses, craning her neck behind, _ once again, _ proving herself to be the only capable person of this ragtag group conjoined in blasphemy. She freezes upon seeing the ladies behind them. “Shouto,” she murmurs lowly. Considering how strawberry milkshake glances over at her beckon, ‘Shouto’ is probably his first name. Stupid name. 

“Oh.” Todoroki’s eyes shutter into slits, and Ponytail’s own glare sharpens.

Bakugou, concerned by her countenance, shifts slightly to hide those twos’ view from the old ladies who he assumed would be the type of people to haggle coupons at Family Mart. 

“Ah shit,” Todoroki mutters, tone clipping out of their typical indifference, sounding the most alive Bakugou’s ever heard him. Bakugou, having absolutely no idea what the fuck they’re thinking, discreetly peers over at the three old hags. 

One of them blinks back at him with a bulbous left eye, her right eye glued shut from old age or injury.

Her needles clank noisily to its own rhythm of life, unconcerned with how she herself appears to have no fixated focus on it herself.

He glares back.

Her toothless smile widens.

Toothless?

His eyes dart back to the leering canines nearly piercing her bottom lip, fixating onto them with such precision that his vision blurs by the stillness of his gaze. 

_ Huh. _

And the thing she’s holding isn’t very pretty anymore. It’s long and brown just like her nails and she’s not holding sewing needles-

That’s not very human of her.

“Crap crap _ crap _,” Ponytail mumbles under her breath, suddenly fumbling with her bag. “Guys we’re getting off next stop those are definitely the Furies-”

“Huh?” Bakugou narrows his eyes.

“Who's in a fury?” Midoriya mouths, trying to peer around Bakugou. 

_ “Not _ now _ , get off,” _ Ponytail commands sternly, panic flurrying her words yet composure enunciating her order. 

“Wait, I mean, whoever they are, they’re not like. Going to straight up slaughter us in front of other mortals, right?” Bakugou grits out, ignoring how a young girl sitting next to Kirishima stares at them with saucer eyes. Yeah well, redhead's hair is stupid after all. Or she’s staring at the hilt of Bakugou's sword peeking out from the narrow bag he’s nonchalantly carrying on his back. To be fair- it’s not like he could’ve kept something that sharp and heavy in a backpack, and on the outside, even without the Mist, it’d probably look like an instrument. And though he's not sure if in America this isn't strange, but in Japan, this type of view isn't that uncommon. Lots of people had bags like these. Such as to carry a kendo shinai.

Besides, Kirishima currently has a similar bag, just wider, given the broadness of his sword.

“Uh, can’t count on mortals as an indirect defense, especially since the Mist is very manipulative. Most likely, the Furies will know they won’t get caught no matter what they do,” Kirishima informs, looking equally disconcerted, his tan visage ashy, his authentic friendliness hammered out with something mature, something older.

Bakugou hates being left in the dark.

His eyes creep back, flitting over to the old-

Hags.

Literally. Like mobile, moldy beef jerky. Imagine storing your food so poorly that even preserved meat, dried for the sake of longevity, still developed mold. 

His heart drops. 

They smile, and Bakugou has a hard time deciphering if their grins are simply so calculative and wide only to make sure their fangs don’t puncture the inside of their mouths. 

“They have _ wings? _” Fucking goddamn Deku shrieks, his voice a translucent whisper.

And he looks forward to see Todoroki attempting to haggle to the bus driver to stop now even though they’re approaching a dark tunnel _ and holy shit they’re approaching a dark tunnel _, and he instinctively knows they’re not getting off.

He looks back once more, because _ no way _ would they come after them. It’d just look _ stupid, _like three old ladies attempting to beat three kids like their Asian grandmas. They wouldn’t hurt them with so many witnesses-

Then he feels something brutal and ragged lash against his cheek.

He recoils with an automatic shout, that’s followed by gasps and screams from around him _ so cool, mortals are definitely seeing _something, and he slams into Deku in front of him in an instinctive need to distance himself.

One of the hags stand up on inhumanely clawed feet, lashing a leather whip in her hand.

Bakugou takes a moment to really digest the scene, before he realizes something. Which is: what the fuck. _ “What the fuck are you doing, huh, you think you can come after me with your dirt ass Froot Loop? H-” _

_ “Kacchan." _

_ “Shut the _ fuck _ up Deku!” _ He rips off his backpack, and blindly shoves it behind him, and he sees out of the corner of his eyes, Ponytail grab it from him. 

And Bakugou’s ready to start swinging, when darkness swallows them whole. Stunned into stillness, he finds himself enraptured by the a single speck of light through the back door window.

The light slowly gets smaller and smaller.

That must be the tunnel entrance.

He blinks away his shock.

Three pairs of mirroring scarlet eyes blink back.

He’s going to fucking sue the bus driver for not just stopping.

Now _ everyone’s _ screaming, and he’s pretty fucking sure that Deku’s in that mix too, and he leaps back, rebounding at how fast the eyes are closing on him in indication to how close the actual fucking _ monsters _are-

When he feels something hot and ranchy humidify his skin: _ “WHERE IS IT?” _ And he knew he hated their voices.

Bakugou flinches, before shouting back with equal measure and vindication: “AS IF I’M GIVING YOU AN ANSWER AFTER TRYING TO WHIP ME. GO TO A BDSM CLUB OR SOMETH-”

_ “He’s not here!” _Shouts a distinctly feminine voice. Ponytail. “He’s not here!”

“Who is ‘he’?” He hears stupid fucking Deku ask, and Bakugou’s going to sacrifice him as his personal bludgeoning club if he doesn’t shut up. 

“You!” And the lady’s voice isn’t a singular voice- it’s a tangle of various screams from various lives entwined into one consequential knot, heavy and burdening like a weight of sins. Terrified by the inhumaneness of her voice, paranoia sogs his brain like a soaked sponge, before weeping out all its terror in one trigger.

He dissects her voice too quickly, and he’s sure he can hear the Minotaru’s terrifyingly human scream tangled within it, too.

Bakugou recoils as he feels something sharp and clawed settle on his shoulder, and it _ yanks _ him aside, sending him flying against a cursing and withering being.

“Midoriya Izuku, your existence have offended the gods-”

Bakugou ignores the squirming body that broke his fall, scrambling onto all fours on the seat, stepping over someone else, while spitting back into the general direction of the monster, “he offends _ everyone _ with his existence, shut the fuck up, you ain’t profound,” he remarks scathingly.

“I- what? Sorry?” Deku retorts, and Bakugou would’ve drowned out his half-assed apology with his own reprimandation, if not for the fact that Midoriya really doesn’t sound like the Deku he knows.

He doesn’t sound truly apologetic or timid.

He just sounds reluctantly _ tolerant. _

He sounds indignant, tired, and bitter. If anything, Bakugou would categorize the tone as impatient.

As if Deku’s tired of being the one waiting for something that might not even come.

Bakugou wonders when Deku will inevitably use the same tone on him.

“I’m sorry that your gods are missing something, or- I don’t even know! I don’t even know what I’m sorry for, for being born?” Deku snarls, his voice lost in their surrounding sea of noises, yet, clear enough for those around him to hear. 

“You must die.” Replies one of the old ladies who look like she barely made it through the Great Depression.

“Wow.” Bakugou finally says into the darkness when no one directly answers. “Great and clever response.” He comments.

“Hades will punish you and Zeus will kill you!” Comes another tinny voice, and _god_ Bakugou hates it when people start spouting shit that _everyone_ already knows. 

“Return it! We know you have it!” Begins another voice of a similar thread, her tone its own McFlurry concoction of spite and voices and probable meningitis.

Bakugou propels forward, tired of this bullshit, and feels his hands connect with _ something _, that he sincerely hopes isn’t some bystander.

Then, he feels reassured that most likely, it’s gotta be either the monster or Deku, both being a win-win.

A sudden scrape against his neck, throbbing and hot tells him it’s not Deku.

The body underneath his thrashes, and he nearly collapses onto the floor, his chin snapping against the seat from across the aisle.

“Foolish mortal-” _ and of _ course _ they say that in real life, too _, “you test the gods and their patience, self-entitled when you have n-”

“Shut up!” And Bakugou slams his elbow down, ignoring how his arms are stinging and he’s growing lightheaded and something sticky and heavy pulls tight against the skin of his jaw like a face mask.

_ I could activate my powers. _

And Bakugou’s pretty damn reckless in a tight spot. It’s a dependent instinctive reflex to just go all in, taught through his experience with bullies, with life or death situations, with Satoshi.

This is the first time he hesitated on anything.

He doesn’t know if being in too close proximity with this power would burn himself off. His hands seem fine. Immune to the heat, to the fire.

What about his face, leaned close and already lacerated with this bitch’s claws? What about the rest of his body pinning her down?

He can't even reach for his sword right now, his hands occupied as he's currently struggling against the tangle of sharp joints and something leathery and scraping and _ holy shit are they wings- _

“WE KNOW YOU HAVE IT WHERE IS IT-” Comes another voice behind him. 

“We don’t have him! He’s not Poseidon’s son-” Ponytail wails fruitlessly. 

“Momo, _ move!” _ And it’s Kirishima, and he hears a furious screech from one of the monsters.

“Clearly they’re asking for something, not someone,” Bakugou informs dryly over the rattling screeches and people sobbing over the lack of cell phone service in the tunnels. 

And Bakugou thinks at this moment: great. They’re going to fucking die.

Swearing, he takes a gamble hoping he can keep her down with one hand, as he wants to reach for his sheathed sword, knowing he zipped the bag except for the very top for easy access in such times-

Then the car careens to the left, figuratively and physically throwing Bakugou for a loop in its literal plot twist. He grasps onto the monster as if that’d stabilize him, but the force of the lean rams him aside like a rag doll, causing him to reflexively drop her. His sword topples down his shoulder, hooking in the crook of his elbow. 

  
  


Bakugou’s nape cracks against a seat and he topples against something warm, and he scrabbles up, only to realize underneath his palm is something warm and squishy and his finger suddenly jabs into something mushy and a _ scream _ amplifies underneath him _ and holy shit I touched someone’s eye? Did I just touch someone’s e- _

He leaps back, only to nearly crumple as the heavy bus crashes back onto its four wheels, and suddenly, Bakugou can see a pinprick of light in front of him, growing larger and closer and-

It’s the exit of the tunnel. 

As they finally burst out, the sun crackling amongst the dark and silent tunnel bakes his eyes alive, echoing his vision before he’s able to take in the shattered windows and collapsed bodies around him.

He scrabbles onto his uneven feet, his stomach protesting as he pulls himself up due to a primal sense of alarm, screaming at him to locate his dangers.

Glaring around, ignoring how the sudden movement careens his sense of balance, he’s able to find only _ two _hags, both of them staring at the fragmented glass that’s stained with what’s definitely not cranberry juice. He readjusts his bag, and quickly draws out his sword.

They take a step back, and Bakugou grins.

“Did. Did one of the Furies go through the window?” Kirishima concludes from behind him. Bakugou ignores him, his gut squirming and telling him through a slosh of stomach acid washing his mouth, to _ get off the damn bus. _

He whips his head forward to see the bus driver shouting indecipherable words that are barely heard over the passengers’ own collective symphony of panic, fear, and probably a couple cases of eiphinial soul snatchers.

He takes a moment, his vision blurry and his cartilage still Jell-O, only for his eyes to focus on fucking _ Todoroki _ , standing there with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, and equally white countenance on his expressionless face, and currently having an entire wrestling match over control over the bus with the fucking _ driver _.

“What the _ fuck _ are you doing?” Bakugou bellows over the shouts, a couple of them dying at his loudness, and he stiffens as he hears a slithery sigh. 

_"Just paying back what you did to me,”_ a slithery voice coils around his ear. 

He barely had time to turn around when he goes slamming against the floor, a large, crushing weight sitting on his spine. His sword goes skittering across the bus.

Shit. Well, he had no idea how to properly use a sword, as he's only went through basic stances with Sero, as the boy tried to transition Bakugou's typical dependency on brute force into strength drawn from proper positions and movements.

Bakugou hasn’t gotten the hang of that yet- so brute force it is.

Todoroki shouts back from the front, voice placid. “You looked like you needed help." Right. Bakugou did ask him what the hell he was doing.

“Who the fuck needs _ your _ help.” He wheezes underneath the monster’s cement body, squirming around, humiliated. And he seriously considers using Ares’ gift once again but he doesn’t _ trust _ it to not have side-effects nor does he want to depend on something he doesn’t fully understand- he can't guarantee it won't burn off half of his face while at it. “And we were in a dark _ tunnel _ you didn’t see _ shit _how the fuck would you know I need your bullshit help-” he grunts back to Todoroki, and he slams his forehead against the gritty floor once again in a futile attempt to shake off the monster.

Her claws digging into her back, puncturing his back muscles like a stapling gun causes him to seize up, as his body snaps against the floor, spasming by the pain and he even forgets how embarrassing it is because it’s fucking _ hurts _ and sure he’s more resilient than a normal human being but he’s-

He’s still _ mortal. _He nearly laughs at the ludicrousness of this situation.

God.

There's a _monster _on him, who probably looks like a goddamn white grandma to everyone else, and he's a fucking spastic kid spouting Japanese on the bus filled with Americans.

What the fuck has his life come to.

Almost hysterically, he remembers how he took off his backpack. God. If he kept it on then maybe his back wouldn't be in shreds. _I'm just making all the wrong choices, aren't I?_

“KACCHAN!”

And suddenly, the weight flies off, but he can only roar because at that moment the lady still had her claws sunk into his triceps, and the sudden rip of their intrusions fucking _ hurts _ and shit he’s bleeding he can _ sense _ it because it’s warm and metallic and overbearingly _ strong _-

He staggers onto his feet, body lumbering from blood loss and a good sense of delirium, and he nearly topples into Kirishima, who had whipped out his sword already.

Faintly, Bakugou realizes there’s only one monster left. Kirishima probably took down the one on his back after forcing her off. He quickly grabs his own sheathed sword, glaring around him. 

“Bakugou.” And it’s fucking _ Todoroki _ and what the fuck does he want? And before he can promptly chip Todoroki’s teeth on the end of the emergency crowbar, Todoroki has _ another _ impulsive decision that’s _ so _ fascinatingly stupid that it prompts Bakugou to feel the urge to dissect his goddamn brain and organs.

The boy yanks the emergency brake.

The entire bus shrieks louder than the chorus of mortal screams, tires screaming against the pavement, and even the remaining monster goes tumbling into the back, all the passengers near her raising their knees to their chests, curling away from her tumbleweed body. 

Bakguou flips her off, spitting out a glob of blood that congealed in the crook of the corner of his mouth. He can feel its warm pathway against the side of his face, the blood spurting out from some type of wound that's stinging around his brow bone.

Then, he decides, fuck it. And as the creature bounds onto her claws once more, onto all fours, he rips his sword out of its bag and watch her falter. Before she can promptly one-shot him because he has absolutely _no_ experience in this shit and is relying on pure luck and desperation, he instinctively leaps forward and swings his sword against her, determined to take advantage of her sliver of hesitation.

And unlike the Minotaur, who fucking felt solid, unlike the hellhound who Bakugou touched, his palm gripping his strong and dense snout-

This monster felt like nothing.

Like he hit nothing, as she scattered instantly into gold the moment his blade swung into her.

He stares, the screams of the surrounding passengers becoming nothing more than a swirl of colours and smells.

It's almost like he didn't kill anything. It ultimately felt so much _different_ than how he had to brutally hurt the hellhound, how he had to stab the Minotaur and watch it bleed and wail (and he sounded so _human-)_ and no _wonder_ the other campers talk about killing monsters so easily like it's sport like it's something to be _proud _of because it almost feels like-

Like they're just paper.

Like they're just air.

His hands are trembling.

He doesn't like this feeling. This strange sense of ease (because it feels like nothing). And he probably would've never questioned this absence of heaviness if he hadn't had to kill the Minotaur or the hellhound with nothing more than teeth and fear-

“Off the bus, off!” Kirishima barks, forcefully hauling Bakugou back into this world. He turns around, and sees Kirishima's giant fucking sword still crossed in front of Ponytail and Deku. So he was the reason why the ladies didn’t just fucking take out Deku in the darkness of the tunnel as they should’ve. At this, Todoroki yanks another handle, and the doors pop open with a rusty suck, and everyone stares at the doors, and Bakugou can feel the hundreds of eyes from behind him zoom in on their one exit.

And he might be in fucking pain, but he knows it’ll get even worse if he lets people fucking stampede over him.

They make a run for it, and Bakugou can feel hands on his shoulders, people dragging him back, and he yoinks himself forward, stomping on feet, and shoves Ponytail and Deku forward, sending them both stumbling. And when Ponytail buckles, he scoffs and just grabs her by the back of her shirt and lugs her back onto her two feet, refusing to release her even when she does stabilize.

“Fucking save your practice for Black Friday,” he snarls to an edging man who’s trying to squirm past them, who looks surprised. Either because he's suddenly swearing in English, or because he literally looks like a maniac. “fuck off!” He spits at the one young kid who earlier was staring at them. Maniac it is.

He goes tumbling on the grass with Ponytail, nearly dislodging her ankle against his thigh. He quickly locates Kirishima, sending her staggering over. Finally in the clear, he feels safe enough to sheathe his sword, slinging the bag's long strap over a shoulder. “Where’s De-” His words are cut short as he sees Todoroki helping Midoriya up. Todoroki, noticing Bakugou's gaze, gives him a thumbs-up.

Bakugou sticks out his middle finger.

“Whoo we’re alive!” Kirishima yelps, effectively exhibiting how low his standards really are. He’s still holding his sword though, thoroughly prepared to take a swing.

“Why the fuck aren’t you guys injured?” Bakugou gripes.

“Bakugou, maybe it’s because you threw yourself directly into the line of the Furies without an actual weapon,” Deku deadpans, and he’s already unzipping the backpack on Ponytail’s shoulder, retrieving a ziplock baggie of lemon bars. 

Oh.

It’s the weed brownies shit.

Or at least the healing stuff with the same powerful energy.

“You got really banged up because the monster got her claws on you,” Kirishima steps forward, eyes crinkled into concern.

“Shut up.” Bakugou snaps. “Actually, I don’t feel that much pain,” he admits. “It hurt like hell earlier.”

Ponytail stares at him.

“What?” He snaps.

“That’s called on the verge of blacking out.” She says.

“Extreme blood loss.” Todoroki hypothesizes not unkindly.

“Why can’t we just go with adrenaline?” Midoriya asks, exasperated, as he breaks off the corner of one of the bars, handing it over to Bakugou. 

Bakugou swallows it, only to choke on its flavor.

Spicy.

Tastes like curry. Like the thai curry his ma used to make.

Or the spice is due to the fact that it feels like his damaged sinews are attempting to rethread themselves together, his skin weaving back into one sheet. Shit. Doesn't hurt as much in comparison to how he got the cuts, though.

“You’re bleeding everywhere. But I think most of it is from this cut,” Kirishima leans forward, tapping his temple in reference. “Bro, that’s not good. At least, it doesn’t look too deep. It'll totally heal.”

“Wait till you see my back,” Bakugou chokes, voice rasping from the ambrosia, the flavor and heat it’s emitting in the pits of his stomach feeling like his bones are tossed into a clay furnace.

Like growth pains, but none of the growth, just the _ pain. _ Goddammit.

“I. Oh _ shit _, bro, let me see your back!” Kirishima begins. Right, he actually witnessed the Fury latching onto him like a leech.

“No, it’s fine, it’s definitely healed,” Bakugou shakes his head, unconcerned. And shit, the wounds must’ve not been that deep for them to heal just by a crumple of ambrosia.

It just hurt so much like a bitch, he misjudged the actual severity of the damage.

Whatever. It was bound to fucking hurt- like knives shallow clinging onto a pound of flesh and nerves.

_ But I literally thought I was dying. _ He already knew since he was young that pain isn’t associated with actually dying- if anything, he was probably being dramatic about his pain. Which is why he was able to remain composed even under the stress of not knowing how severe the damage was.

But.

He really does wonder-

_ I would’ve died, right? With at least three-inch claws sinking into my muscles? _

He could’ve died. Then who would’ve saved his mom? 

Then who would swagger onto two unsteady feet in front of Satoshi and spit at him and tell him he’s _ made it _ (but the reality is Bakugou could’ve just died a pitiful and unknown death just like Satoshi promised and Bakugou _ hates _ it when others are right-).

He has to be more careful.

“You’re okay?” Ponytail reaffirms. He nods mutely. “God, I’m so sorry. It’s your first time on a quest and really you’re a new camper too, and you had no training I-”

“We already knew it was a suicidal mission,” Bakugou snorts, unbothered. Ponytail simply seems more disconcerted by that, if anything. Not his problem.

And he sees the way Midoriya stares at him, and the kid was always an open book.

Guilt and horror is the cause of the layer sheen over his eyes, the crinkle in his chin. Bakugou rolls his eyes. But, to his surprise, Midoriya does not approach him. 

And Bakugou has a feeling that Midoriya really did change. He's no longer dragging Bakugou around like a doll alongside his own morals. He respects Bakugou's space enough to know that if he starts fucking bawling like a little bitch over him, feeling stupidly guilty over his injuries even though it's literally not his goddamn fault, then that would only infuriate Bakugou. He hates it when people get involved in shit that they're not entitled to.

“Hey-”

Bakugou flinches, whirling around, and sees a man approaching him.

Oh. It was the one that he shoved aside.

“What do you want.” Bakugou snarls nastily in English, and the man cringes, his eyes darting around him.

He’s covered in blood. 

He has a long suspicious bag hanging off his back.

And he probably looks mildly feral, if not at the very least, disengaged from reality.

And he is associated with the cause of the bus crash.

Bakugou glances around, and sees the rest of the passengers staring at them. 

He makes eye contact with the little girl from earlier.

She winces.

Then, a sharp whisper from behind him: _"Kacchan! Don't do anything stupid!" _And Bakugou is very tempted to whip around and knock out Deku's teeth like his fist is a very wide toothpick.

"You. You're." The man holds up a finger.

_"Bro, play dumb!" And first they fucking want me to not be dumb and now they do the fuck is this they both cancel each other out-_

"Excuse me," Bakugou replies in perfect English, his school-taught British accent smothering his internal screams. _Play dumb. _"Sorry," he holds up his palm. "I don't speak English."

The man stares at him.

Bakugou stares back.

_"Not that dumb!" _Midoriya stage shrieks from behind him. 

Then, Ponytail sweeps in, as if she could pick up the pieces of this conversation that's somehow more disastrous than the bus right beside them. 

“Sorry, my friend got banged up from the crash, the glass from the windows dug in, we need to hurry and leave to find a hospital.” Ponytail lies with fluent English, stepping forward confidently with her persuasively distraught smile. He can't tell if her flurry is genuine or purposeful to display worry. “He’s a bit jumpy because of it, we’ll be on our way now-”

A loud and too familiar and too tiring raptorial shriek echoes from afar, rattling the passengers and effectively distracting their witnesses.

Well. Guess now they don’t have to navigate around such a troublesome lie.

He glances over, and sees a sudden dart of grey zip out of the tunnel.

_ Shit. Right. _There was one of them that presumably went flying out the window in the tunnel. 

Bakugou turns around to at least shout a quick ‘suck it’ to the singular Fury, when lightning fucking shreds the top of the bus like it’s a crumpled can, eating the interior out with a crackling energy.

Silence.

Then the bus combusts into flames.

They stare.

Then a heavy downpour of thunder and water floods the scene, as if knowing if the fire continues they’d have a literal forest fire since they crashed right next to the woods.

“Wasn’t it just sunny,” Bakugou finally says.

“Zeus.” Todoroki answers the unspoken ‘how’. 

"Bonfire bus," Kirishima comments appreciatively.

Bakugou whips his head over to Todoroki, who’s definitely somehow at fault for this, and sees Todoroki still stabilize Midoriya with a hand, silently eating a lollipop.

“Where the fuck did you get a lollipop you dege-” And mid sentence, drawing out his sword to fucking stab the bitch because it might not be useful against mortals but Todoroki definitely isn’t one- he hears a sharp shutter and whir.

He turns around.

A guy in a tourist Hawaiin shirt slowly lowers his camera as he makes eye contact with Bakugou.

Bakugou slowly slides his eyes over to his fucking one-point-three kilogram metal sword the size of an overgrown four-year-old pointed directly at Todoroki, who appears utterly unbothered. 

“Can they see this?” He mouths to no one in particular.

“I mean. You still probably look like a serial killer no matter what. The Mist may be magic, but it doesn't work miracles.” Kirishima whispers apologetically.

The guy takes another picture.

* * *

“My first time into the outside world and due to a _ quest _ as well, and this happens,” Ponytail murmurs glumly, voice nearly shrouded by the background rainfall and pattering thunder. She doesn’t seem to be a type to complain, yet, she’s clearly sweating over this.

“Kacchan, you can’t just hit people who annoy you-”

“It wasn’t like my sword would’ve hit him anyways.”

“Still, taking a violent swing at some guy for taking our picture says a lot about your personality.” Todoroki informs, deadpanned.

“I’m having a rough day,” Bakugou returns indifferently.

“I lost our bags,” Midoriya groans. “I’m so sorry, and that was my only _job_ too." Apparently, Todoroki and Kirishima had dumped their backpacks with Midoriya while on the bus so that they could feel free to fight, but it was lost in the turbulent situation. "And I had Riptide on me but. I didn't even use him."

“It’s okay," Todoroki reassures.

"You gave your sword a gender?" Bakugou asks from the background. 

“Yeah, chill, don’t worry about my dude! We still got the godly food,” Kirishima consoles, and only his voice is easy to hear over the rain. The godly food was in Bakugou's backpack. It's the only food they have. They lost three out of their two bags, and Yaoyorozu's normal backpack carried their remaining hygienic items, and Bakugou's was medical supplies and godly food. 

“You’ve complained about this for the eighth time, just accept our comfort and fuck off,” Bakugou snaps. "It's fine, didn't you hear us?" 

“Yeah. We'll be fine, we just have to find another food and water source.” Ponytail bites her thumbnail. “Okay, let’s find a nearby place to eat, buy extra to store the food, and then we can continue.”

“We've just been walking through this forest for like what? The past fifteen minutes?” Bakugou grumbles. “After being chased by those Furies?”

“Are _ all _ monsters like this?” Midoriya moans.

“I mean. I think. You two have particularly bad luck.” Ponytail says gently. “You do have the scent of a strong god,” she reasons. “Like. It’s been two days and you’ve already ran into the Minotaur, a giant hellhound, the Furies...” she grimaces. “It’s. I think Hades is out to get you.” She then turns to Midoriya, crinkle in her brow. “Please, Midoriya, watch yourself next time. I saw you jump in front of Kirishima. He can defend himself, you...you...” she hesitates.

“Are weak." Bakugou finishes for her. "Don’t play hero if you’ll only do more harm than good,” Bakugou says coldly, and these words are just like ones he’s said when he was younger to Deku on the playground, except the connotation and tone isn’t the same.

That makes all the difference.

“It’s just. Midoriya, this is very selfish of me to request of you, but please don't put yourself in harm's way. You’re the reason for this quest, and.” She sounds embarrassed. “Not only are you a good person, and I would never have a higher reason to keep you safe, but. I begged to come on this quest- Aizawa-sensei really didn’t want me to come.” Her voice lowered. “This is my first time outside of the camp in seven years, and if you die, most likely none of us would ever be allowed on another quest."

“Seven?” Bakugou murmurs, raising a brow at that.

“That’s. A long time,” Midoriya murmurs meekly.

“Don’t feel pressured by me!” She suddenly says hurriedly. “Feel pressured by the fact that you have lots to live for, for yourself,” Ponytail rushes to reassure, tone panicked. “Sorry if I’m overstepping my boundaries! It's selfish of me to ask you to live for such a shallow reason-"

“Why haven’t you left the camp in seven years?” Kirishima inquires. “When I first came here, people said you were one of the oldest campers. There aren’t any older?”

“The older ones usually go on quests. The ones who grow up can go live in the human world if they want, but usually they don’t. Unless if they’re from more minor gods, they usually don’t make it if they try to integrate into mortal society.” Todoroki explains quietly. 

Bakugou wonders if that means if his mom hadn’t somehow transported them to this Camp, he wouldn’t have lived to see the age of twenty.

Deku definitely wouldn't have lived past the age of eighteen. 

“I haven’t left the camp because you’re not supposed to, unless if you have a quest that allows you to,” Ponytail admits, face shadowed by the canopy above. Probably better for her. “Sorry Midoriya, if it sounds like I’m using you like an object.”

“No, it’s fine.” Midoriya says confidently. “It’s understandable, and you’ve said so yourself, your protectiveness isn’t just because of your personal reasons, it’s because I’m a human too. There's nothing wrong with receiving benefits from a good deed, as long as you also have good intentions as well. Anyways, wanting to leave and experience things is how humans learn and feel, it's not 'shallow' to want to do those things. So don’t worry, I promise I won’t die!” He laughs.

And he can’t see Ponytail’s expression, but he can see the silhouette of her shoulders lax. “Thank you for complying, even though you barely know me. And. Yeah, I want the experience. Because you only know if you're actually good or not once you experience the real world,” she continues hesitantly. “People say I’m good at camp-” and she is. He’s seen her leadership during capture the flag, despite the way she had zero confidence.

She has the talent.

Just no experience, no cultivated skill in that area. In other words, a useless leader unless if she changes.

Sucks.

“But there were many people better than me, who went on quests and never came _ back. _ I can’t live with thinking I’m good when I know I’m not.” And holy shit, no wonder she’s insecure. Seeing people stronger than you die, then yeah, that tends to put a dent in one’s self-esteem.

“Crap, sorry,” Kirishima says. 

“Don’t be. We’re demigods, we’ve all experienced loss,” she responds resolutely.

“I guess. But like. Momo. You really are good- everyone always has someone better than them. But you’re above average in smarts, strategy and understanding of others, and fighting!” He snickers. “The important thing is you have lots of potential, which by default, means you surpass the capabilities of others,” Kirishima says, and Bakugou straight up underestimated his insight.

They continue walking for a short while, with the only voice whispering between them being the wind that slithers through the cracks of thunder and the pounding of rain.

Bakugou suddenly has a thought. “Are those monsters _ bad?” _ He inquires, thinking about the giant slime that also chased them, and wisely decides not to bring it up. 

Are monsters bad, is the real question he wanted to ask.

He thinks about the hellhound.

“Yeah. They’re monsters for a reason,” Kirishima shrugs.

But Ponytail doesn’t answer. Neither does Half-Ass.

“What about the ones we faced?” Deku questions.

“I mean. Hellhounds and Furies are rather partial to Hades, even though all monsters do spawn in the Underworld,” Ponytail replies from somewhere to the left of him. “So they’re bad for us because we know Hades is targeting us. But objectively, they’re not immoral. Like the Furies, they’re ancient, and their influence stretches deeper as real characters with names known by mortals. You ever read _ The Oresteia?” _

They look at her, simultaneously stopping their offbeat walking. Finally, Kirishima says: “Momo, we’re basically all illiterate.”

“What is that? A news outlet?” Bakugou scrunches his face. 

She turns to him, and he’s finally able to see her face. She smiles warmly at them, almost amused. She almost looks fond, though, Bakugou knows better. “It’s a trilogy of a tragedy. At one point of the story, the author establishes the origin of the Athenian judiciary system through an event considered as a fable by mortals.”

“What.”

“Oh,” Todoroki says, the typical blandness of his tone making it hard for Bakugou to understand his muffled words. “The story with our mother.”

“Yeah.” Ponytail confirms. “It writes the Furies, or as they’re renamed due to this story, the _ Erinyes _-”

“Bullshit.” Bakugou blurts, before stumbling over his steps out of sudden confusion. “The ‘O Kindly Ones’?” He translates aloud, stammering over his own sudden turmoil over being able to confidently know what she’s saying despite having absolutely no fucking idea what language she’s speaking.

“Yep,” she smiles approvingly, shaking slightly to wring the rainfall out her hair. Though, considering how it’s still storming, he doesn’t see how that helps her at all. “So they’re renamed that after this story, since in that time, they’re established by Athena as what we essentially call ‘prosecutors’ and ‘judges’, told to dish out and judge punishment not through their usual vigilante justice, but using a proper legal justice system.” She explains.

“They’re supposed to perform acts of justice?” Midoriya asks, clearly in disbelief.

“You sure they’re just not going wild on their own?” Bakugou leers. Just because someone claims they’re fighting for justice, doesn’t mean they actually are. Just look at the government or police in some countries.

“No. They originally punished mortals for committing actual sins, based on standards of morals and ethics that even human nature aligns with,” Ponytail shouts over the rain. “It’s just after this story, they acted on fairness based on the context of a situation rather than going along with assumptions. Like every modern legal system.”

“Great, and like every legal system, they’re not very thorough as well, given how they’re coming after us.” Bakugou snarls.

“And that’s why I thought this was strange.” Ponytail looks at him. “They’re typically considered defenders of rights, but they’re also on the flip side the symbol of vengeance,” she narrows her eyes, her gaze dim underneath the forest rooftop. “And they kept asking for something. I thought it was Midoriya, but honestly, it doesn’t make sense why they’d ask for him, especially when he was right there. Maybe they thought we had the Master Bolt?” _ Shit she’s a mutterer like Deku, too. _ Narrating and hypothesizing out loud. _ “ _But that wouldn’t make sense, given they would’ve known Hades would’ve had it, and Hades wouldn’t do something so roundabout, especially with people of righteous standards like the Furies.” 

Bakugou’s already phasing out from this conversation. Not because it isn’t interesting, but because he’s going lightheaded from the cold and the numbness creeping up his legs from stomping in wet leaves for so long. He squirms. He’s not particularly claustrophobic, but the trees are tall, stretching up to the heavens and caging them in, signifying how small they truly are in this world.

_ It’s cold. _

“-they wouldn’t just attack you because Hades wanted you to, they would’ve done so because they must truly believe you committed something wrong.” And she’s still theorizing, but honestly, it bothers him a lot less than he thought it would. If anything, it's almost comforting to know they’re still alive, that she’s right beside him even when it’s dark. “Which. I guess Hades could always lie about his own misdeeds and use you to cover his own, but,” she hesitates. “I don’t know. I’ve never met Hades but I feel like he’s not the ty-”

“You’re implying you’ve met the gods,” Bakugou snorts.

She blinks. “yes?”

He glowers back. “Wait seriously?”

“Yeah, sometimes we visit the gods to report our camp, and to visit our parental figures if necessary. Sort of like representatives,” Todoroki explains. “I went with Momo last year.”

“Right. And you just. Visited the gods. Right, sure, _ what?” _ Bakugou scoffs at the ridiculousness of what he’s hearing, though, he’s no longer doubting anything after everything that just happened.

“Mhm. Sixth-hundred floor of the Empire State Building,” Ponytail says. And that explains absolutely nothing for Bakugou.

“Right. Okay. Uh. That’s like. Four-hundred-and-ninety-nine more floors than I recall out of my history textbook, but yeah you know what last time I checked dogs aren’t supposed to be tripled four-hundred-and-ninety-nine kilograms, either.” Deku rambles quietly. “This is a dream, we’re going to wake up.” He exhales a conclusion.

“A nightmare,” Bakugou corrects.

“An adventure,” Kirishima remarks happily, sidling up to Bakugou. Bakugou glares at him.

He doesn’t distinctively _ dislike _ Kirishima. If anything, while Bakugou is an easily annoyed person and therefore doesn’t enjoy the company of others, he doesn’t _ not _ like people simply because he’s incompatible with them.

Kirishima definitely seems like the incompatible type.

Bakugou takes in his damp hair, sullen and tangled by the thunderstorm, and his bright eyes, reflective like lamps in the dark.

Fucking moth kin.

He’s still smiling. 

God. Happy people. Annoying.

“You don’t want to be here, don’t you?” Kirishima finally inquires, voice not at all judgmental, almost simply matter-of-fact.

Bakugou narrows his eyes.

“Does it look like I fucking want to be here?” Bakugou snarks.

Kirishima's smile just deepens at that, wrinkling the dimples of his face. “Nah. To you, this probably sucks and crap. I mean. You’re risking your life and others not because you want to, but because what? Someone’s just telling you to?”

Bakugou walks faster, his stomps impressively loud upon the mulch ground of mottled leaves and wet, rotten plants.

“Thanks for coming along, though. Even though it's super unfair to you.” Kirshima adds a bit quieter.

“Don’t fucking thank me, I don’t want thanks. I’m not doing this for you.” Bakugou lours, feeling even more disturbed by how Kirishima appears completely unbothered by his attitude. But he doesn't seem to be tolerating him out of pity- there's nothing like that on his casual and unfaltering expression. "I don’t want to be here.” He repeats. 

“Yeah, I mean, you have every right to feel that,” Kirishima shrugs. 

And while he seemed just like an optimistic guy, Bakugou also assumed it meant he was by extension, somewhat naive in the sense of fixating on the best outcome, that this would just be some fun game even though their lives are at stake and his _ mom _ is a casualty and Deku doesn’t even want to _ be here _-

And Bakugou realizes, almost guiltily, that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Kirishima depict excessive optimism anyways. Kirishima’s just naturally a happy guy; that doesn’t necessarily mean his judgment is unrealistically optimistic. 

Suddenly, Kirishima seems less annoying than literally everyone else except for Ponytail.

“Yeah, I know, I don't need your validation,” Bakugou still replies sharply, despite his lessening animosity towards him.

Kirishima just shrugs good-naturedly at that. “Yeah, I know. You don’t need anyone's validation when it comes to how you feel, especially in a situation like this.” 

“Glad to see you get it.” And he means that more as a taunting remark, something meant to convey the message in flashing lights: _ hey, fuck off. _

“I mean. Anyone should be able to get it, you shouldn’t have to explain it to anyone.” Kirishima says.

Bakugou continues walking, losing interest in responding, unsure as to how that suddenly seems to tell Kirishima that he’s suddenly okay with his blathering.

Respectful motherfucker.

* * *

“Oh, there’s something here!” And they’ve already reached the end of the forest, yet, they’re now approaching the side of a flatten, wide trail that suggests they’re really no longer in some urban area, but they’re also not in a rural area either. They’re just in the middle of nowhere with fucking country energy.

They start walking.

Twenty minutes in, and they’ve only collected dust and sweat (and Bakugou was shivering earlier, skin chilled to the point where his fingers throbbed red as water clung onto his clothes and blurred the surface of his eyes. Now he’s equally soaked because of sweat). The horizon doesn't seem to be getting any closer.

They’re losing hours. They have less than ten days. They’ve left near the morning after breakfast- it’s almost noon, judging by the high sun. Shit he wishes he had a watch. One of them probably has one, though. 

“Over here! I swear this trail leads towards somewhere,” Kirishima suggests, gesturing towards a steep branch of this road.

“Yeah, probably to some old abandoned farm,” Bakugou leers.

Kirishima rolls his eyes at that. “C’mon, Baku, let’s go.”

_ “Oi what did you just call me-” _

“I mean, we do have to stop somewhere, we can check real quick before continuing,” Ponytail shrugs, supportive of this idea. Bakugou bites off the remainder of his scolding, and instead shoves his hands into his dirty jean pockets, following her down.

None of them speak. It’s too hot. 

The heat fried their clothes into stiff cardboard that’s only dampened by their own perspiration, making them miss the miserable cold of the rain and electric air. They fear the periodic roll of Nevada heat and the noontime sun that had cleared the sky with terrifying speed, baking the ground and depleting their energy.

And _ oh _ , Kirishima is _ definitely _ his favorite, Bakugou realizes as they approach not a farm with a will to live lower than Aizawa’s, but a real place with possible AC.

The neon sign flickers, before promptly dying. 

“What does that say?” Midoriya squints, peering through the sun scattered across his lashes. And Bakugou was secretly thinking that too, not like he was going to fucking ask. “The words are...” he frowns. “We’re dsylexic, right?” 

Bakugou cocks a brow at that. “Huh?”

“Oh. Did Aizawa-sensei not tell you this?” Midoriya blinks innocently, and Bakugou wants to lob his head across the field like American football. “Most demigods are neurodivergent. Many are dyslexic, as well.” 

“Seriously?” Bakugou murmurs. And he’s heard of dyslexia. Seen too many Bella Thorne memes on TikTok not to.

“Dyslexia is,” he begins, trailing off, unwilling to fully admit he doesn’t know.

“It’s a reading disorder,” Midoriya begins.

“Right, great, that helps me a lot.” Bakugou doesn’t _ know _ if he has a reading disorder, because he might simply just be _ bad _ at reading. He’s always been bad at reading, and audio books were too difficult to focus on. Which is why when he was younger he felt even _ angrier _ when Deku placed them on similar levels, thought that Bakugou was just smart when Bakugou honestly _ wasn’t _ because he wasn’t some fucking innate prodigy. If anything, he had a constant and inherent disadvantage when it came to studying because of his absent focus, and inability to read well and organize topics and subjects. Even now he lacks the ability to filter out unnecessary stimuli, so instead he crams everything into his brain, remembering minor and unimportant details that only clutter and take up his limited focus.

Reading was so _ difficult _ and fucking Deku would call him _ smart _ and claim him as a friend when-

Deku would _ never _ be his friend. He never had to fight for his own esteem, his own self-worth the way Bakugou had to.

And Bakugou hated it when Midoriya simply thought they were on the same level when Bakugou started off at a level lower than he would ever. 

_ But Deku apparently has a reading disorder, too. _

Bakugou swallows.

And Deku never complained. Never allowed his problems to crystallize insecurities defended by a massive wall of ego.

Deku never-

Deku never once thought of discriminating against Bakugou as a kid for believing he was just a prodigy, never once looked down on him for thinking Bakugou had it easier than he did because Deku also would’ve unknowingly had the same problems-

Something miserable and hot swarms his bloodstream, and Bakugou doesn't know what to think, so he just doesn't.

“Dyslexia is like.” And Bakugou can’t focus on Ponytail’s words, eyes darting across Deku’s thoughtful countenance. “Difficulty interpreting words which affects reading, but there are various types of dyslexia. Therefore you could have different symptoms or issues than other individuals,” Ponytail begins. “Most demigods have this because our brains aren’t wired towards mortal language in general, since we’re naturally predisposed towards ancient Greek and recognizing languages written like it.”

And _ oh. _

In his head. He thinks about it and-

He just.

He just thought that everyone struggled with reading. Back when he was a kid, he thought he was just _ bad _ at it.

In high school, past his era with Deku, he thought that maybe he was making excuses. That everyone probably sucked at reading, that everyone had difficulty understanding words and being able to thread them into a meaning, and he should just suck it up instead of complaining.

“So it’s hard for all of us to read that?” Bakugou points at the sign.

The cursive, neon red loops lopsided the identity of the letters, and the flickering of the lights only confuses him even more. He finds himself incapable of conjoining the letters into a proper sentence, the words swapping and never ending.

“Yeah, I guess.” Midoriya frowns.

“Shou-” Ponytail begins, but Todoroki is already shaking his head.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “My dyslexia is just phonological. I can read the letters just fine, it’s just. Being able to sound them out and place them together is hard.” He explains, probably for Midoriya’s sake since Ponytail would already know this. “So normally I just see words and memorize their sounds automatically, rather than understanding how to string them together because it’s too much of a hassle.” Well, sounds like the easy way out; after all, work smarter not harder. “The last word of this sign I haven’t heard often or seen it written before, and I really can’t put it together on my own,” he admits.

And Bakugou expects Ponytail to translate, since she seems like an avid reader (or maybe it’s because he’s seriously set the bar too low amongst all of them that the fact that she seems mildly competent makes him believe she’s already some high-ranking academic achiever), but she’s inclining her head as well. “You have dyslexia too?” Bakugou asks nonchalantly.

She nods. “For me, I can’t really recognize mortal letters or numbers at times,” she shrugs. “Cursive makes it so much worse,” she sucks in her breath. “Just. Give me a sec.”

“You too, Kirshima?” Midoriya asks politely.

“Not really. I just have surface dyslexia- I’m just unable to really read words that don’t sound like how they spell.”

“So you can read that? Maybe?” Bakugou clarifies.

“Oh what? Lmao no.” 

“Don’t say ‘lmao’ out loud ever again.” Bakugou retorts seriously.

“It’s in English,” Kirishima explains himself. "I have no idea what it says."

"Fucking doesn't know English yet uses 'lmao' I should 'lmao' your fucking ass right now-"

“Wait. It’s ‘Auntie Em’s Garden Emporium’,” Deku finally says. "The sign. That's what it says."

“You can read that?” Ponytail blinks.

He shrugs. “Took me a second. But for the most part, it wasn’t _ too _ difficult. Ever since I was young I was told to read and listen and talk a lot, maybe that helped me adjust better to reading and recognizing letters, especially in cursive since I was taught to write and read English while growing up. Most of my English is written in cursive, actually.” And Bakugou wants to fucking square up against him. “I don’t know. Or maybe my dyslexia just isn’t severe."

Kirishima smiles brightly, looking like he wasn’t just caught up in an entire bus crash triggered by three old ladies who apparently are Hades’ own workers. “I mean, definitely a garden gnome emporium,” he comments, gesturing towards the shorter statues pitched into the dirt, looking like little hobbits. 

“Auntie Em’s.” Midoriya echoes, glancing at them. 

“Sounds American, for sure,” Bakugou grimaces. “Smells like grease,” he crinkles his nose. And that's definitely American, as well. 

“This place looks nice, look at all the statues, not just of the gnomes.” Midoriya observes.

Bakugou saw them, all right.

He hates them.

“They’re so realistic,” Midoriya hums. “Just like those Greek statues back then, when they’d carve them to be so hyperrealistic.”

“They look like they’ve been put through a haunted house, why are they carved looking so scared?” Ponytail murmurs, obviously unsettled.

“It’s more interesting than the regular expression,” Todoroki admits, though, even he doesn’t have an answer as to why _ all _ of them look this way. 

“They’re really cool,” Kirishima compliments, leaning closer to one of them. “Hey!” He laughs, gesturing towards one of the statues. “I mean, the skill! They look so alive- like they’re looking right at me!” He beams.

“Right,” and Bakugou doesn’t want to head inside. It looks dingy and grimy and smells equally disturbing, like decaying flowers of a molting home clinging onto the past fragrance of life.

Smells like a hospital. Or an unsocial aging well that westerners have.

But it’s super hot out here.

“Smells like burgers,” Kirishima waters. Definitely not what Bakugou’s smelling.

“What’s a burger?” Todoroki inquires carefully.

“Didn’t you say you attended school here?” Bakugou scoffs. Even in Japan they have burgers.

Todoroki shrugs. “I was a rich kid.”

And that explains a lot.

“Shit,” Bakugou stares. “You’re going to fucking have a burger and you’re going to like it,” he finally threatens.

He hates how Todoroki mildly looks like he’s looking forward to it. 

“I don’t like this. This feels strange,” Ponytail finally admits.

“Yeah I mean there are decorative realistic statues of gnomes just partying around and this place smells like clogged arteries and heart failure,” Bakugou snarks.

“But it smells so good,” Kirishima says mournfully. “Like, c’mon, this is some countryside. Monsters usually are where people are actually _ around _, why would they be here?” He reasons. “This place should be safe!”

“That’s a good point,” Ponytail confesses reluctantly.

“I’m. Yeah I need to use the bathroom,” Midoriya admits.

Bakugou stares at him.

Midoriya catches him. “Please, _ stop _ and let that _ go-” _

Bakugou doesn’t know how to tell him it’s really difficult to forget how traumatizing it was to sit in Deku's goddamn pee at the age of fifteen.

“And this place wouldn’t be expensive,” Kirishima points out, clearly still trying to persuade Ponytail to be fully on board.

Well, Bakugou’s not against it. “I’m down,” Bakugou shrugs. He’s hungry, too. “Oi, shitfish.”

“Yeah?” Kirishima replies.

“Huh?” Deku glances up from his hands. But Bakugou’s too busy staring at Todoroki, who had looked up and well. As they make eye contact, Todoroki slowly averts his gaze, clearly trying to appear inconspicuous.

And Bakugou had expected Kirishima to reply- the boy seemed to have gotten a hang of Bakugou’s personality. And he totally said 'shitfish' knowing that Deku would respond out of habit. But _Todoroki?_

“Did _ you _ reply to that?” Bakugou asks in disbelief, and to his utter amusement, Todoroki appears to _ sulk _, embarrassment twitching the corner of his mouth and slanting his gaze onto the floor.

“Oh, you meant Todoroki?” Kirishima blinks.

“Nah, you,” Bakugou rounds to him, still grinning at Todoroki's display of utter stupidity. “Lemme borrow your hoodie, you’re not wearing it, right?”

“Yeah, but that’s because it’s super hot,” Kirishima frowns. “You’re going to get a heatstroke if you wear it,” he chastises.

“Shut up,” Bakugou rolls his eyes. “I’m fucking covered in dried blood and I smell like it too, let me steal your sweatshirt for now.” And thank god that Kirishima isn’t the type to taunt Bakugou about discreetly trying to disguise a favor as a demand. Because Bakugou only asked out of desperation, because he _hates_ asking others for help, but he knows he can't just walk around with a white shirt looking like he spilled potent Kool-Aid all over his back. It's not like they had space to bring out wear, anyways. When it came to hygiene, they only brought changes of underwear, socks, and individual toothbrushes and a large toothpaste bottle to match. Everything else was medical supplies, food, and water.

Kirishima simply passes over his red hoodie without question. Bakugou creeps to the side of the building and yanks off his crusty shirt that’s _ really _ starting to stink, and gives himself a sec to let the dry air cool down his thin layer of his sweat.

At least his shirt isn’t starting to smell like fertilizer yet. He doesn’t know if it can be salvaged, and he has half the mind to chuck it into an abandoned trash can, if not for the fact he doesn’t know when he’ll have another shirt, or when Kirishima will want his sweater back. At least he’s pretty sure the blood won’t smell for now- though the added heat and moisture of his sweat does make him nervous about the decomposing rate of the blood tissue.

Whatever.

Once he feels relatively dry, he tugs on Kirishima’s sweater.

Immediately, heat envelopes his body, and he cringes in disgust. Whatever, as long as he gets inside quickly he’ll be fine. He rumples his shirt into a ball, and shoves it into his own backpack. He pauses. Shoving his bloodied shirt with their medical supplies doesn't seem very cash money of him.

But he doesn't want to leave behind a shirt with his own blood. It's very possible it'd be sent to the authorities. The authorities that would know that some stupid asshole in Japan is trying to find him and his mom right now. He sighs. At least the medical stuff is all in their own baggies. He crams the shirt in.

“Whoo, Auntie Em’s!” Kirishima pumps his fist as he returns.

“Whatever,” Bakugou rolls his eyes. And he's not the most annoying person he's met so far. 

* * *

“Oh. Are _ you _ Auntie Em?” Bakugou blinks, startled. There, at the doorway, greets them a rather short lady, swathed in black. She’s wearing a veil.

Has the energy of a Chanel widower with a mysteriously vanished husband and a forged life insurance document.

“Yeppers!” _ And the aesthetic is ruined. _ “Hello, I’m Auntie Em,” she bounds over, and she reaches forward, and Bakugou stares. The rest of her body is cloaked, thematic to her elegant aesthetic, yet, her hands appear supple and youthful (probably not really a widower, then). She reaches out to shake Todoroki’s hand, while Todoroki himself looks viscerally distraught probably because he’s allergic to human interaction.

He tilts his head, watching the interaction, then where they're conjoined.

His eyes freezes.

He squints.

They’re pink.

Bakugou leans forward.

Her fucking hands are pink. But her nails are manicured, fingers slender and ornamented with gems. Almost refined. But what the fuck her hands are-

Wait. 

No. They’re not pink- she’s just _ extremely _sunburnt. That has to be it. Looks like it.

The veil and cloak makes sense now. 

He looks up, reassured, only for his blood pressure to spike up again (and god all this stress accumulated within these past three days is going to send him into a cardiac arrest). Todoroki’s visibly disturbed, his sudden expressiveness being equally unforthcoming itself. And Auntie Em almost appears similarly distraught as well, the way she abruptly drops Todoroki’s hand, her sudden energy rebooting as she freezes into an uncomfortable silence. “Oh.” She finally says. 

And Bakugou must be looking too much into it- he’s just paranoid. She sounds normal.

“You two, are you two...” she gestures between Ponytail and Todoroki.

“We’re not dating,” Ponytail confirms hastily.

“Not that it’s just,” she blinks. “You two have the same grey eyes,” she says, and Bakugou glares at the way she seems to purposefully point them out, something slick in her tone. “Sorry, it’s just. Grey eyes aren’t really common, are they? Are they contacts?”

Bakugou doesn’t like this.

“Oh, ha,” Ponytail laughs, embarrassed. And Todoroki, one of his eyes is a dark hole, looking like an ugly ass olive (and Bakugou will shoot him in the face), but now that Bakugou peers a bit closer, the other one isn’t just a pale blue, it’s straight up steel. He glances at Ponytail. Well, they technically do share the same parent. “Yeah, we’re step-siblings, and no, we don’t wear contacts,” she clears her throat.

“I see,” Auntie Em replies loftily. And she evaluates the rest of them. 

And even with most of her figure and face covered, he can still count the extra seconds her eyes land on Midoriya.

_ It’s okay. I mean, yeah, of course you’d be more concerned about monsters against the son of freaking _ Poseidon, _ but like then again if this was in the mortal world people would think Midoriya looked wack too, with his green ass hair. _

“You guys are a large band of children.” She says, as if she isn’t shorter than all of them. She’s the one that looks like a child. She tilts her head. “Y’all look a bit.” She gestures towards them. “Roughed up.”

“Our bus caught on fire,” Todoroki says at the same time Bakugou says: “got lost.”

Bakugou snaps his neck over, ready to crush his windpipe with a cement gnome from outside.

“Bus caught on fire and then we got lost,” Bakugou finally says. 

“Oh, I see, you guys must be starving!” She gestures them towards a booth.

This place is cleaner than he expected. He thought it’d be run down, grimy and probably musty with the scent of fryer oil.

This seems okay. Sure there are cement statues even inside the building, but a lot of them are nestling fresh flowers and little ornaments.

He waits for Todoroki to slide into their shown booth, then Ponytail, and he perches precariously at the very end of the outside booth seat next to her. 

There doesn’t seem to be any other servers. He supposes that’s because this place is extremely small, small to the point where he’s wondering if there’s enough revenue to even keep open. 

“Here,” Auntie Em reappears, handing over menus. “Do you guys have adults with you?” She asks.

They glance at each other, and _ god _ they must look suspicious. Like runaways.

Bakugou thinks about the missing and wanted poster of him.

Shit.

“No, we were driving back from a sports game when our bus caught on fire,” Bakugou finally conjures, hating that he has to work around Todoroki’s stupid slip. “We’ll call our parents after eating,” he reassures gruffly.

“Hm,” she hums at that, and if he peers hard enough, he can see her faint smile, blurry from the net of her veil. He glances upwards, underneath her large, wide-brim black hat, as if trying to catch the reflection of her eyes.

He couldn't.

Something cold shivers the lining of his stomach, and he lets his eyes drop back down to the menu.

“I’m Auntie Em, what about you guys?” She greets.

“I’m Kirishima, this is Midoriya, that’s Baku-”

And he lets it slide this time. He’s pretty sure by this point, his name and shitty picture with him and his mom are all over the news. Better to be called 'Baku' than his name outright.

“Momo, and Todoroki!” Kirishima finishes excitedly.

Ponytail, a fucking simp, smiles politely. “Thank you, ma’am,” she says formally, and Bakugou flips to the next page of the menu, before flitting his eyes up at the uncomfortable silence.

Auntie Em's head is tilted at Ponytail, yet, her visage remains utterly unreadable given her headdress. 

Bakugou slowly flicks the page, his eyes never leaving her.

“I want a milkshake!” Kirishima exclaims loudly, effectively shattering Bakugou’s odd concentration.

He blinks, and returns to their menus. “What’s a milkshake?” Todoroki asks flatly.

“Oh, chicken tenders. The classic for every childish eater,” Midoriya says appreciatively. 

Bakugou sighs, and takes a deep breath, tired, his sore legs grateful for being seated.

It’s warm here, but not overwhelmingly hot or stuffy with grease as he thought it’d be.

And it feels safe. In comparison to these past two days, it feels almost okay. Like they’re getting somewhere. 

The aroma here is also _ heavy _. Almost gross yet it’s so-

It feels like the air is just clouds of laughing gas and hot sun against tar.

It smells both nice and suspiciously convoluted at the same time.

He glances down. He hates all of this but he’s hungry, too. “You guys want to order just large fries and split’em?” Kirishima advises.

“Sure. It’ll save money,” Ponytail suggests, pulling out her unique wallet, before freezing. “Shit.” And this is the first time he’s heard her swear. He watches the others’ excitement falter into concern. “Guys. I. I lost the American money.” And her expression crumples. _ American money. American. _ And suddenly, Bakugou feels like they’re missing something, that something’s so painfully and obviously wrong, but he can’t figure it out.

He sneezes, the heavy scent of food and sunny days clogging his nose and stuffing his brain.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Auntie Em intervenes, still standing there, and once again, rubbing Bakugou the wrong way, but he’s too busy trying to clear his sinuses to think. “Don’t worry about it, you guys sound like you’ve been through a lot,” she shrugs. “I’ll give you guys a discount.”

“Sweet!” Kirishima rejunivates almost instantly. “Thanks Auntie!” 

“I- thank you,” Ponytail hastily bows in her seated position, humiliation and obvious guilt wrinkling her countenance. 

“Yeah, thanks,” and Bakugou’s vaguely concerned about how this place keeps standing considering everything. 

“Thank you so much!” Midoriya smiles genuinely.

  
  


Auntie Em seems to stiffen somewhat, before, strangely quiet, returns a soft: “you’re welcome.”

* * *

“This tastes _ so _ good,” Kirishima moans.

“Eat with your fucking mouth closed,” Bakugou snarls. They’re all teenagers: the fuck are they doing, eating like they’ve lost their fine motor function around their jaw area?

He discreetly looks over, stealing a glance at Auntie Em who’s seated at the counter that’s not that far away, watching them, not at all bothering to hide her obvious gaze.

And it's strange. She cooked the food for them, in the frying heat, next to heated utensils, wearing her entire gothic ensemble and veil even though there’s only one rusty fan that clinks every time it makes a sharp turn to the other side. Even if she’s sensitive to the sun, they’re inside, and it’s fucking hot. How and why is she wearing that entire ensemble?

Whatever.

She gave them free food- no judgment from him. 

“I haven’t had American food in forever,” Midoriya gasps. “Like, sometimes just pure sodium is what you need.”

“Yeah, what you need for heart disease,” Bakugou corrects scornfully. To the side, Ponytail is silently sipping her juice, having not touched her food. Probably because she feels like shit for losing the money. Whatever. It’s not like goddamn useless Deku didn’t lose their food and extra water bottles in the first place- she should just blame all of this on him.

“Oi, Ponytail,” and it takes her a moment to react, and she flinches hard as he verbally shakes her out of her thoughts. “Eat, don’t collapse later because you didn’t. That’d be harder on us.” And guilt-tripping her does wonders. She slowly takes a fry.

“Dip it in the milkshake!” Kirishima gasps, thrusting over his long cup, and hesitantly, she does. “It tastes so good,” he reassures.

“That’s fucking gross,” Bakugou remarks plainly.

Kirishima just sticks his tongue out, and Bakugou has half the mind to dump a packet of table salt straight onto it. 

“Awe man, if I knew American food was so good I’d move here and learned English just to order this shit.” Kirishima moans.

Bakugou jerks harshly at that, hand trembling and grip slipping around his perspiring cup of cooling coffee.

I-

He had a thought earlier.

Something about America.

They’re in America they’re in America they’re speaking English they’re talking English(?) with Auntie Em and-

The cup nearly slides straight out of his grasp.

Did they use English? They all talked with Auntie Em normally meaning they spoke with a shared language. But. Can Kirishima even _ speak _ English? He certainly can’t read it he said he couldn’t _ he said he- _

“Kiris-” He begins.

“Is everything to your liking?”

And Bakugou’s trained his own reactions meticulously, especially after years of living underneath the Olive-Loving-Dirtbag Satoshi.

Yet for some reason, his skin can’t stop prickling at the feminine voice, his adrenaline can’t stop flooding his system and overriding his control over his stuttering breaths.

He swallows, and carefully sets his cup down before he really drops it.

“Yep!" Deku nods.

He looks up, and Auntie Em is gone. He looks over, and sees her working in the back.

He frowns, and is ready to ask the others what they think when suddenly, she lifts her head, and just the bottom half of her face in his general direction causes him to freeze. Then, from where she’s standing in the kitchen, the smell of hamburgers and something sweet and nostalgic laxes his alertness.

“So, Auntie Em,” Midoriya suddenly says before Bakugou can recompose his thoughts. Todoroki raises an eyebrow at Midoriya. Even Auntie Em looks disconcerted by the way he’s calling her out. “You sell gnomes?”

And Bakugou feels like he’s supposed to notice something. Something in his face (what was it? American? Something about Ameri-).

“Yep!” She chirrups, walking over to their table. “Used to sell these statues with my two sisters, but they passed-” and Bakugou slowly sets down his burger. _ Passed. _ And she sounds young, too.

That sucks.

The heavy flow of sympathy that floods his thoughts almost feels unfamiliar, new. He’s not usually like this. He pities people for sure but to feel such intimate sadness is-

“So now it’s just me running this place,” she finishes with a particularly brave brightness.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Midoriya frowns. “Is it lonely?” And Bakugou thinks that’s insensitive- he hates it when people ask him questions. He _ hates _ it. Then again, maybe it’s not nosy, and instead Bakugou just happens to be biased against both Midoriya and intimacy.

“Ah ha, I mean, yeah of course I miss my sis, but it’s like,” she shrugs, “whatever.” 

And it doesn’t sound just like ‘whatever’, but Bakugou doesn’t question her. 

“Wait,” Ponytail slowly wipes her oily hands onto a napkin, voice strangely terse in contrast to Midoriya’s sloppy sadness. “You have two sisters?”

And Auntie Em’s voice replicates her curt tightness. “Mhm.”

“Awe, that’s so sad,” and Kirishima is glowering at his melting milkshake, slurping it. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs through a yawn.

Bakugou, awaken from his fatigue by Ponytail’s odd behaviour, by Auntie Em’s strangeness, and the way that Todoroki himself appears slightly _ off _ in the most skittish way that he can’t pinpoint but it looks defensive and almost judging and he’s staring right at Auntie Em-

“We should go,” Bakugou finally says, not liking this tension, wanting to dispel it. And he doesn’t know if it’s monsters, doesn’t know if he’s just paranoid or jumpybut there’s something climaxing here and he doesn’t want to see it peak-

“Wait, won’t you guys stay for a pose? I would love to take a picture of you guys. I don’t get a lot of customers, especially friendly ones.” Auntie Em offers slyly, almost juantingly.

“Wait, we’re going?” Kirishima murmurs. “But this food is _ so _ good.”

Midoriya nods. “Yeah,” he murmurs, voice rounded and airy with obvious sleepiness.

Was he tired just seconds ago? He was just talking normally, Bakugou's sure of it.

_ This is weird this is weird this is weird this is- _

No. No it’s not weird. _ We’re just tired. _

He’s just tired.

_ No I’m not. _

And he’s not.

Bakugou narrows his eyes. They’re all in a slump, finding a resting place after draining their adrenaline and emotions in one go. 

But that leaves them vulnerable.

“Yes, I think we should go, our parents must be worried they haven’t heard from us in a while,” Ponytail stands up in a hurry. “Especially if they heard about the bus accident.”

Todoroki silently follows, the three of them on one side of their table standing up, beginning to clean up. 

Bakugou crumples up the napkins and wrappers, because unlike the others he’s not a heathen. Besides, this lady _ did _ offer five massively hungry children free food, so he’s not going to be a dick just because this place doesn’t pass the vibe check.

“But a pose-” Auntie Em flitters onto her feet.

“I. Our parents, we really have to go,” Ponytail shakes her head firmly, proving herself to not be as big of a doormat as Bakugou initially suspected.

“Right, we have to go,” Todoroki echoes, and now that Bakugou’s actually heard his voice, he can confirm it. Todoroki’s not exactly expressive, looking like a constipated lampshade for the most part, but his voice is tilted, atypical from its usual indifference.

“Just one photo, she wants a pose, c’mon,” Kirishima argues, almost whining. “Guys, how. How could you guys turn her down? She _ lonely-” _ and Bakugou’s pretty damn sure Kirishima has more tact. At least, he thought he did. He seemed socially apt for the most part so why is he acting so loose now?

“Yes, I rarely have any visitors and I think I’d enjoy having you guys as a memory,” Auntie Em crows.

And taking picture of kids? That’s. Well, he guesses it’s not_ that _ weird. Lady seems to have her own abandonment issues and personal baggage. But-

Todoroki’s pupils are quivering in the whites of his eyes, grey and thundering just like Ponytail’s.

“Yaoyorozu, I haven’t seen grey eyes in so long-” Auntie Em compliments cheerily once more, and Bakugou’s inside goes cold.

“Who?” Bakugou says lowly.

She turns to him, face tangled in their own headdress of black, and all he can see is her still smile. "Hm?" She hums questioningly, sounding as if she really doesn't know what he's talking about.

“Who the fuck is Yaoyorozu?” He frowns.

“Me.” Ponytail blinks, sounding mildly affronted.

Bakugou stares.

"What?" He stares. He tries to rack up a name for her.

Bakugou has a sudden revelation that he has absolutely not fucking idea what her name is. 

If he was not Bakugou, he supposes he would feel mildly ashamed. However, since he thankfully and fortunately _is_ Bakugou, he does not. “How did _ you _ know her name?” He points at Auntie Em.

“You guys introduced yourselves-”

“Not with _ Yaoyorozu _ the fuck. How do you know her name when even _ I _ didn’t know her name?”

“Kacchan you don't know anyone’s name.”

“If they introduced her with that name I’m sure I would have questioned it then and there because there’s no way I heard 'Yaoyorozu' before. Who the hell is Yaoyorozu?"

"Wait. That's right. Kirishima, you introduced her to them as 'Momo', and it's not like any of us would use 'Yaoyorozu' in the first place," Todoroki suddenly stiffens, eyes narrowing and voice clipped. 

There’s a fragile silence amongst them.

Bakugou turns to Auntie Em. "Who _are_ you?"

Auntie Em doesn’t say anything.

This ‘Yaoyorozu’ does, though. “Run.”

And holy shit she does not need to order that twice. Bakugou’s already nearly out of the door, trusting that the clatters and shouts behind him won’t amount to anything because they’ll all get out safely, when he realizes he doesn’t hear footsteps behind him. He turns around, and falters.

Kirishima’s sludgy and slouched on his booth, blinking blearily, and Auntie Em is pinning Midoriya against the cushion right beside him. And Bakugou cannot _believe_ they are possibly in a life or death situation, and they're fucking knocked out like the dentist accidentally injected them with a dosage of elephant tranquilizers that heroin addicts abuse. 

Yaoyorozu is crumpled to the floor, as if tossed aside, and where the _ fuck is the humanized peppermint- _

Bakugou finds himself lunging forward, reaching for Auntie Em, ripping at her sleeve and tugging at her headdress and-

“Bakugou _ no!” _

And a sudden force yanks him back, and he whips around, pulse running high and heart knocking against his rib cage with a painful tempo (it hurts to _breathe) _and he finds himself jerked against something solid. And Todoroki appears out of nowhere from behind him, one hand clutching his stupid Pikachu hat, another clamped on Bakugou's shoulder. “I think that’s a gordon so you can’t let them see her eyes-”

"Gorgon? Like the heavy metal band?" Bakugou blinks. "The fuck are they doing in America-"

"No like! Monster." Todoroki heaves, and Bakugou tries to pry off his hand but it's bolted tight like a clamp.

"Cool, cool, gorgon, I get it!" 

“Medusa. Seems like she finally reincarnated after all these years,” Yaoyorozu’s scrabbling onto her feet.

“Seems as if you’re well-versed on the tale we share between our families,” and Auntie Em’s voice is no longer kind, animated nor youthful.

It sounds old, acidic and clipped with sharpness and resentment.

Bakugou’s familiar with that sound.

Familiar enough to understand aggravated sadness when he hears it. He narrows his eyes. Only desperate and dangerous people carry that voice. 

“What’s the tale?” Bakugou suddenly blurts out, eyes focused on Midoriya whose eyes are still cloudy, fixated on the ceiling above him, and he’s murmuring underneath his breath, struggling like a dying ant.

Bakugou shivers.

“Uh. I don’t know the tale. What’s the tale?” Bakugou swallows, croaking once more. 

Todoroki’s hand is still on his shoulder_, and it burns. _

"You don't know the tale of Medusa?" Yaoyorozu tilts her head. "It's very well-known even in moder-"

"What the fuck is Medusa?" Bakugou tosses his hands in the air, exasperated by their nonsensical responses. 

For some reason, Auntie Em looks mildly offended. 

“Medusa is a liar, vile, Bakugou-” Yaoyorozu mutters, “don’t trust her-”

“And your mother is a cruel woman, evil-” Auntie Em counters, and the venom in her voice sounds candid enough. 

Auntie Em.

Holy shit. Auntie _ M. _He just assumed it was ‘Em’ because it’s not like he could read the sign anyways-

How the hell did he miss that?

"So you're Medusa? What is that? A name?" Bakugou points, genuinely confused.

"Bakugou, this is a common Greek myth that even nonbelievers are aware of-" Todoroki tries to explain. 

"Fucking half-assed colouring book," Bakugou wants to tear off Todoroki's hair. "Looking like the colored printer ran out of ink on you. I'm fucking Japanese, why the hell would I know any Western myths?"

Todoroki recoils at that, and seems to take that into consideration. Idiot. Stupid. Goddamn dolt whose brain is more useful as a dustpan. 

"Medusa was a young maiden who desecrated my mother's temple with Poseidon, which was disrespectful and vain." Yaoyorozu essentially Schmoops the entire story. She turns to to Medusa. "You challenged the gods including my mother-” she rebukes, eyes flashing, defensive over her mom. 

"Oh? Deku's stupid dad?"

At this, Medusa cranes around, and Bakugou flinches, nearly knocking Todoroki off his own feet at the sight of a veiled figure, whose only trait is a distinctively wretched mouth, wrinkling into a feral leer decorated with fangs. And he's wary, on edge that she might yank off her headdress any minute, and it's not like they could do anything about it the moment she did. “I didn’t _ want _ to be there!” And she has an equally ugly and acerbic voice to match. “I didn’t _ want to be there with Poseidon in the first place!” _

Yaoyorozu ashens, hands gripping a bronze dagger that Bakugou didn’t even see her take out. And Bakugou keeps forgetting he has his own weapon- it’s just never on his mind since it's not easily mobile like Riptide or a dagger, so it’s just constantly zipped in its bag. 

He would reach for it, but Todoroki is right behind him. 

And reaching for it- it makes him feel strange. Bad. 

Cruel.

It means he’s ready to take on the possibility of murder (and he killed a hellhound, a Fury, and the Minotaur already. Why is it different _ now? _Just because she what? Looks more human than the other two when the reality is they’re all monsters?).

“You think I _ wanted _ to be at your mother’s temple? To meet Poseidon? You think I _ wanted _ to even be with Poseidon in the first place? And why would being vain or flashy justify what happened there, and what happened to me after that?”

Bakugou jerks at the implications, and this time, he does nearly take down Todoroki, both of them only stabilized by Todoroki slamming against the edge of the table behind them.

And well. He doesn't trust men from back in that time period to take rape seriously. 

Men today often don't, anyways. 

Yet he doesn't know why he still feels surprised.

“You know how it feels, to know the gods are still worshipped, viewed as saviors and the most humane? I mean,” she snorts, “they _ are _ the most human. They’re as selfish, egotistical and capable of evil as humans are.” Medusa’s right hand slams against Deku’s face like a stabilizer for her to rotate herself farther to face them. “I. Why. Why is it that over _ eons, _ this is my story? That I _ deserved _ to be ostracized and humiliated by the gods and turned into a monster? That in my story I’m just some _ temptress _ just because a god liked me? Or because I'm pretty or-" her voice clips, mouth gaping but nothing coming out. 

“That sucks.” Bakugou finally says when no one says anything.

“You know what?” She regains her creaky voice, continuing to talk like she didn’t hear Bakugou, which is probably for the better. “Who cares about being seen as a monster. Because let me just say, Yaoyorozu, Todoroki, I _ hate _ your mother and I curse her,” and Yaoyorozu’s previous indescribable expression simplifies into something akin to anger, “and her children are just as arrogant and believe they’re all self-righteous and _ good. _”

“We all know that’s a lie,” and Bakugou can feel Todoroki glare at him. And he _ loves _ that Todoroki _ knows _ when Bakugou’s talking about him. God he can’t believe they share any connection but here they are, somehow telepathically linked each time Bakugou makes a vague, offhanded comment that's definitely meant for him. 

“But even so, Minerva making sure no other man could physically look at me was the best reward I’ve gotten in my life.” She spits, resentment on her tongue, her sneer visible underneath her shadowy net. Bakugou's previous exuberance from shitting Todoroki's pride in the face quickly plummets at her words. 

“And then Perseus fucking ended my life. And your mother _helped_ him. And then I died. For what? I was fine. Living on my own and ostracized from humanity, you know? But then I died and ended up birthing Poseidon’s _ goddamn child I never_ wanted?” 

"Who the hell is Minerva?" Is the only thing Bakugou can mumble because this story is jumping all over the place and he's vaguely confused. “I. Wait.” Bakugou begins, because _ holy shit _ this is a lot of damage that he does not want to involve himself in because _ that’s a lot right there. _ And he _knows_ that's an awful thing to initially think, to think _'that's too much emotional baggage for me to care about,' _especially when she probably unwillingly lugged that around for at least a couple thousand years.

He winces.

“I fucking gave birth to two _ horses _-”

"Wait." Bakugou needs a second.

“-out of my _ NECK _-”

_"Wait." _

“Pegasus and Chrysaor, really,” Todoroki murmurs indignantly from behind him. And Bakugou’s going to punch him, because that seems to _ not _ be the main focus considering how she’s trying to vent about the ethics of gods and her entire gaslit rape story-

“Your father,” she leans in on Midoriya now, turning away from them. “He ruined my _ life _ and my name and I’ll never be able to live and die as a normal human. Instead I’m reincarnated each time I die into the same woman from a myth that everyone villainizes and." Her clipped words, cement and heavy and _angry, _finally crack into fragments. Those light smithereens only cut deeper, however. " _ I didn’t even want to sleep with him.” _

And those are some powerful words, but Midoriya also looks drugged out to the heavens right now and incapable of processing anything. 

This time, Yaoyorozu does flinch. Medusa recovers quickly (and Bakugou wonders how many generations it took for her to compose herself all alone, forcing herself to because no one else would for her) “by now, all of Olympus has heard that he might wage a war against Zeus over a stolen bolt.” She breathes, and Bakugou doesn’t know why it fascinates him. 

“I hope he rots.”

  
  


“You. No, you’re-” Yaoyorozu chokes, and Bakugou believes it’s insensitive of her to invalidate Medusa’s pain with her own perspective, but he can definitely see where her conflict spawns from. “And why should I believe you? Should-”

“Yeah, why should you?” Medusa scathes bitterly. “There’s no good reason to believe me over centuries of storytelling and mortal translations of a story that the gods transcribed from their perspectives. Minerva turned me into a monster for being assaulted in her temple, and Athena aided Perseus to slice off my head." Then, almost amusedly, she _jokes: _"shouldn't I get my own tragedy?" And Bakugou instantly feels bad for her. Yeah, he doesn't really give a shit, he doesn't _know_ her, but that doesn't mean he can't say that her life sounds like it fucking sucks and definitely deserves a Shakespeare script acknowledging that. 

“I mean.” Bakugou shrugs. “If it makes you feel better, I fucking want to throw hands with the gods, all of them, especially Poseidon. And I can reassure you, goddamn Deku wants to as well.” he gestures towards Midoriya who’s now thrashing, yet, Medusa, despite not being in larger stature, doesn’t even appear to notice his movements, easily straddling him down. "And why shouldn't I believe you? It's not like back then they would care about victims or womens' rights," he reasons. "Japan didn't, and still deals with rampant sexism and internalized misogyny that lead to assault, death, and victim blaming even to today. How can I say that didn't happen back in your time, when those things would've been way worse?"

Bakugou turns to Yaoyorozu, and Todo-

  
  


He licks his lips. “Where’s Todoroki?” Bakugou whispers, and Yaoyorozu doesn’t answer.

And it’s just gut instinct, but he takes a leap right in front of Medusa, where her back is exposed to all of them, and something warm fans his face. “Todoroki, what the fuck,” he hisses.

The air ripples in front of him, and Todoroki’s holding his cap in one hand, and in his other, a fucking blade.

Bakugou’s mouth goes dry. “You were going to murder her.”

“She’s a monster.”

“Okay, mommy’s boy, fucking step back for a moment-”

“I'm not doing this for my mother's sake. I don't care about doing it for her sake." Todoroki admits. "She’s going to kill us. All monsters innately hate the gods, including their descendants.” And Todoroki’s going for a more tactical route, trying to convince Bakugou with an objective reason rather than his own emotional one.

“I hate the gods for a personal reason,” Medusa snarls.

“Oi. Todoroki. You don’t know that.” Bakugou retorts, completely bullshitting because it’s not like _ Bakugou’s _ going to know. He doesn’t know shit about Western myths. “Besides, her anger towards you guys might be unfair and unwarranted, but towards your parents, it makes sense if she isn’t lying.”

“She’ll reincarnate,” Todoroki finally says, and he’s _ right _, and that does lighten things, but it quickly unsettles Bakugou, and he looks at Todoroki, his eyes substantial and weighty.

He’s remorseless.

“Your point? Reincarnation doesn’t mean the process doesn’t fucking suck, and I think she deserves a break after everything if what she’s implying is true,” Bakugou remarks angrily. Then, somewhat disconcerted by his apathy (and Bakugou’s _ not _ afraid, definitely not afraid of someone who Half-Asses shit. But how does he respond to someone so apathetic when it comes to something like technical murder-) “I can’t believe you’re justifying sending her through hell, killing her.” And he wants to pull the pity card, too. That she's a victim of this entire system.

But that's not his right to do. And he thinks she doesn’t want their validation. She had centuries, eras that pushed herself to adapt to accepting the responsibility for her unwarranted punishment. Any consolation he offers would never be able to amount to how she was forced to forgive herself for something she didn't even do. Familiarity doesn’t equate to immunity, though.

But either way, she's probably used to it, used to dealing with this and him just stepping in, acting like his validation is suddenly good and will solve all her problems feels self-entitled.

Bakugou isn't good with this, so he leaves it alone. 

“Besides, clearly, she has feelings. Every monster does. Anger is a feeling. Bitterness itself is a feeling- doesn't that prove she’s very capable of feeling sad and hurt, too?” 

And really, people villainize emotions such as anger too much.

He thinks about the hellhound that he straight up TNT’d the fucking snout off of.

And he swears the hellhound knew what Bakugou was going to do. 

He swallows.

"It's not killing. She'll reincarnate into the same person, with the same memories. She won't lose anything, and definitely not her life." Todoroki shrugs. And Bakugou has a feeling that Medusa wished she didn't reincarnate with any of those factors. And it's not like Bakugou doesn't see where he's coming from.

But dying must still hurt. Reincarnating must still take time, must still hurt. And he's pretty sure he heard Aizawa tell him reincarnation can take up from days to full generations, to eons. 

He winces at the latter possibility.

And something must show up on his face, because Todoroki begins to appear doubtful, his own resilience crumpling. "Bakugou, it's not like I have anything against Medusa or I'm saying I don't trust her. I'm just saying that she has the possibility of reincarnation, she's capable of surviving past death. However, we're not. And it's much easier for her to end us just by looking at us when we least expect it, in comparison to us killing her. The truth is, the consequences of her killing us is much higher than us killing her in the sense that she doesn't really die, and that we need to find the Master Bolt for the sake of Olympus."

And that's fair.

That's _very_ fair.

"Medusa, I'm sorry for what happened to you, and I know I'm really bad at showing it, but I truly do empathize with you and I think that's awful. It's just that I can't allow sentiment to put my friends in harm's way." Todoroki says. 

"Who the fuck is your _friend-"_ Bakugou begins.

"It's just that I promised my sensei to bring at least two-thirds of us alive-" Todoroki continues. 

And just like that, all sentiment of this fucking talk is lost on him.

"And at the very least, I think sensei is mildly attached to him," he points at Midoriya who's underneath her, looking very much like an inflatable blow up doll at the moment. "Therefore, I need to keep him alive." Then, almost softly, "don't take this personally." 

"Honestly, none taken," Medusa shrugs, sounding very unaffected by any internal emotional turmoil. "Sounds pathetic of me, but. I think I'd rather be killed by people who believe me than heroes that think I'm someone evil," and yeah. That does sound pathetic. 

"That's rough." Bakugou says. That's some pretty sucky standards. Not like she had good options to really filter through in the first place. 

"And Todoroki, you're right. You're really bad at showing it," she snorts. "But my snakes all say you're telling the truth, so you know what, I'll take it. I rate it seven out of ten." Then, she turns to Bakugou. "Bakugou, your responses terrify me and sound like you ripped off the script from _Avatar_, you know the one." And Bakugou doesn't know what to do with the information that apparently, it's not uncommon for immortal deities to have an attachment to cartoons. "Therefore, three out of ten."

"I. Fuck you."

"Actually, I quite like you," Todoroki hesitates. 

"I can't believe you're contemplating not killing her solely because she insulted me," Bakugou whispers murderously. "Whatever happened to the fact that she's dangerous and a weapon to humanity-"

"Mm. But specifically against you, which is a bonus," Todoroki informs.

The two of them, lost in their own argument, fail to realize that Midoriya is still dying underneath Medusa's hold, as the boy himself wonders why does he constantly end up being crushed by monsters.

“Oi, Ponytail,” Bakugou snarks, realizing she hasn’t said anything these past couple minutes. "Tell your godly parent to fucking beat his ass and learn to respect his elders."

"I'm older than you." Todoroki says.

"Not in mental age."

Ponytail’s clutching her dagger, knuckles flushed and eyes wrinkled with distress. “We can’t just let her roam freely. We have no proof she is right.” She whispers tightly, and she's _still_ talking about Medusa?

Yeah. Guess a vengeful monster with a bone to pick and thousands of years to cultivate her anger probably isn't the most casual topic they can sweep under the rug. 

“But you can’t prove that she’s wrong.” And Bakugou doesn’t give a shit about others feelings so he just- “and you can’t look me in the eye and say the gods give a shit about others’ lives. Tell me straight up that your mom cares about other individuals’ lives past her own favouritism.”

Yoayorozu does not look him in the eye. Todoroki does, however. Bakugou doesn’t give a shit what he thinks though. "Do you really think she's lying?"

Todoroki doesn't say anything. He then slowly shakes his head.

"No. I think it makes less sense to believe she is lying since stories on the gods, especially pertaining the male gods, commonly include acts such as sexual assault or unconsensual sex. These stories, especially written by mortal authors centuries ago would actually write down these deeds as expected or normal as well." Yaoyorozu spouts matter-of-factly, her tone contradicting the shakiness of her hands. "It's just," she turns to Medusa. "I can't trust you to not harm my friends. I apologize on behalf of my parent, who didn't stand with your story. But right now, this is a separate matter."

"Yeah we're kinda busy," Todoroki admits. "End of the world stuff."

He turns around, to see Medusa, glancing at their general direction, quiet. “Okay, and _you_," because Bakugou doesn't discriminate on who he tries to pick fucking fights with. "What the fuck is your issue, fighting us? You’re blaming us for our parents’ mistakes and we aren't even _ close _ with them-”

“I’m close with my mom,” Yaoyorozu retaliates defensively, and Bakugou _ trusted _ her to not be stupid. What the fuck is she doing? Cool, she likes her mom, so the fuck does he, but she’s currently fueling the fire of something that could exponentially ruining their entire journey, as well as their lives.

Bakugou takes note that Todoroki hadn’t said anything, though.

If anything, Todoroki almost appears contemplative, peering down at Bakugou intensely, as if trying to decipher something.

Bakugou shoves him aside. “Don’t fucking be a killer.” He tells Medusa.

Medusa smiles weakly at that. “I can’t believe I’m being told to conform to morals and standards that were never once applied to me.” But she stands up, limply sliding off of Deku. 

And by this point, Midoriya is alive enough to peer up at her, slurring: “ohmygodI'vebeenchokingthesepastcoupleminutes-"

"Deku shut the fuck up, we're having an important discussion." Bakugou sighs, and pinches his nose. "Okay. How can we guarantee you won't kill us?"

"You can't." Medusa replies shamelessly.

Bakugou stares. "Should we just kill her?" He mutters to Todoroki.

"I've literally been saying that the entire time," Todoroki draws for his blade once more.

"I'll paralyze you," Medusa warns.

"Yeah how does that even work?" Bakugou frowns. "I don't fucking get it."

"Her eyes turn you into stone, Bakugou," Todoroki chides, almost like he's stupid for not knowing. Bakugou just nonchalantly tries to dislocate his shoulder in retribution, until Todoroki tries to stab him. Fucker. He releases him, and turns to Medusa with a casual air. 

"Okay. Really?"

"Yeah. Kinda my whole shtick," Medusa confesses without any hint of her previous stubbornness.

"Guyshelp." Deku wheezes from behind, and Bakugou makes a face.

"I mean. Do monsters really want to kill demigods? Is that a real thing?" Bakugou inquires curiously.

"Uh. A lot of monsters like to challenge demigods, for sure. Because monsters hold a major grudge against the gods, especially for being pitted into Taurus, every time they escape they try their best to exact revenge. And since it's not like we can touch the gods, we go for the next best thing-" she points to Bakugou indifferently, "their children. We see them as representatives of their gods." And that explains her anger directed at Ponytail and Todoroki, and especially towards Deku. "However, I've been alive for so long, and. I don't know. I finally encounter a son of Poseidon. I finally have my hands around his throat and-" her words clip, "it's not the same. Gods don't care for their children- the only impact killing you guys will make is just on their pride, on their plans." Then, quieter but infinitely more furious, "it's not the same. Even after so many years and there's finally chance, the most I can do is just _annoy_ them when they've ruined my life."

"...that sucks." Todoroki shuffles on his feet. And Bakugou wants to fucking knock him out because every time he opens his mouth it's just stupid shit gushing out like he snorted crushed laxatives. Bakugou pretends that he didn't basically say another variation of Todoroki's godawful response. "So you're not going to kill us?"

"No. Killing you guys will only make me angrier." She admits, mouth twisted, and she no longer sounds young. She sounds old. Ancient. Like papery thin.

Tired.

Then, quieter: "I don't get why I have to constantly reincarnate if this is the only life I can live. It's not fair."

And there's nothing anyone can say to fix this. Bakugou can't imagine there being anything. 

"Come with us." Bakugou finally says, not bothering to offer sympathies because they'd just sound shallow coming out of his mouth, a kid who doesn't know what she's feeling who doesn't know what position she's in. 

"Okay, wait, Bakugou," Ponytail's eyes flashes.

"I mean. Might as well. There's nothing here that could possibly solve your problem. And it's not fucking fair you're not even offered opportunities to speak back to the gods. So." He shrugs. "Come with us. Who knows, maybe you'll run into Poseidon. Give him a piece of your mind."

"There's no way she'd accept. Yeah, she has her own standards and doesn't follow stereotypical monsters, but she would never join forces with demigods-" Todoroki scoffs.

* * *

"Hey, so I'm Medusa, and I'm joining you guys," Medusa chirrups like she's partaking in a job interview.

Midoriya stares.

"What did I _miss?"_ Kirishima gapes.

* * *

And this is the point where it’s not Todoroki who makes the questionably unethical decision of an impulsive and trigger-happy arsonist: it’s Bakugou.

“Why did you do that.”

“This place was clearly warped with magic.” Bakugou shrugs, as they stare at the small diner that’s reduced to a charred and crumpling infrastructure. “Atmosphere felt weird, intoxicating.”

“So you decide to burn down my restaurant?” Medusa hisses stiffly.

Bakugou would glare her directly in the eyes if possible, but in the most Todoroki-esque voice he could muster, sounding like he has the EQ of a Clementine, he says: “yeah.”

She looks like she wants to deck him in the face.

To be fair, he did just kill her main income and essentially burnt down her home.

“How did you do that?” Yaoyorozu murmurs. 

"Uh."

After he corralled them out, he quickly ran back in, leaving all of them thinking he needed to wash his hands or something, only for them to watch as he straight up bombed the entire inside by dipping his rather immortalized hands into the bubbling deep fryers full of chicken tenders and detonated his power.

Turns out, the entire building had a lot of gas pipe issues, causing a chain reaction throughout the kitchen and into the small eating area.

He walked out, to find Todoroki staring back at him, hands clasped, having already accepted his death and prepared to send him off to the heavens with a prayer.

After trying to strangle him, Todoroki clarified he wasn’t trying to offer him up to heaven.

He then said it was because Bakugou wasn’t qualified for that.

By that point, it was Bakugou who decided to return the favour and have him host a prayer over his untimely death.

All this flashes through his head like a series of snapshots before he dies from stress or high blood pressure at the ripe age of fifteen, and Bakugou smartly decides he doesn't have the energy in him to deal with explaining Ares’ specialized powers or the fact that he dipped his hands into two deep friers like they’re jumbo shrimp.

“Uh. Wiring,” Bakugou answers, mildly dumbfounded by the awfulness of his lie.

“Oh, sounds about right,” Yaoyorozu nods sagely, and this time, he’s only startled by how she fucking accepted this.

“Well. I mean. This is good though, now you don’t have a place to store paralyzed living creatures,” Kirishima says amiably, looking like he recovered from his ten minute self-deprecation after sobering up and realizing he didn’t properly defend them. 

“Oi, how could you think this was okay?” Bakugou jerks a thumb over to the gnomes and others.

“The gnomes I paralyzed on purpose, because they kept terrorizing the restaurant because of who I am.” She shrugs indifferently. “Yeah, I could’ve just stepped on them.” Then, her tone drastically changes. “Peace was never an option.”

They stare at her.

“The others,” she addresses, adopting a contrastingly sheepish tone, “all by accident.”

“Manslaughter is still a crime,” Yaoyorozu says.

“That’s lowkey murder.” Bakugou reaffirms.

“I don’t know how to reverse it.” Medusa shrugs, sounding regretful. 

“You-” he groans. “Okay, we’ll figure that out later. For now, you, let us fucking go, like don’t tell other monsters or Hades or some shit about us. Yeah you’re angry, probably a bit deranged if you’ve been reincarnating and living for thousands of years and experienced consistent gaslighting over your story too, while having your assaulter just running amok and praised, but c’mon. Be clear here, and straight up understand we have nothing to do with your story, and if anything, I have a fucking bone to pick with the gods. Stop seeing us as our parents.” 

And Bakugou doesn't want to sound _insensitive_ towards her story. Doesn't want to sound like he's belittling it or claiming it isn't severe or important enough for people to pay attention to. 

It's just that they're on a time limit, and Bakugou in general has zero tolerance towards emotional turmoil. He just can't. He's good at everything except for this: he has no concept of how to console others, can't find it _in _him to _care_ (and maybe that's so bad, maybe that's insensitive and cruel and gross of him but he just doesn't have the capability to be so selfless and offer himself to others when he doesn't have a clear formula on how to really help them), and he just. 

He just doesn't feel obliged to help, either.

He inwardly smiles mirthlessly at that. 

_He's not a good person_. Not like he wasn't aware of that since the beginning. He doesn't give a shit about the gods, about Poseidon or about their stupid bolt. He just cares about his mom, and mildly for Deku out of default 'what the fuck that's not how you treat people' shit. He cares about them even less after encountering Medusa.

“Why should I trust you?” Medusa asks sharply. "Clearly, you guys see me as a monster no matter what I do."

"Nothing wrong with being a monster," Bakugou shrugs jerkily. “Besides. Older people tend to be wiser or some shit. Something about tolerance and that's probably better for this group. And like. What are you? A granny?"

She looks at him.

Then, before Bakugou can read her sudden silence, she reels back a fist, and socks him in the jaw.

* * *

“Can’t believe you automatically started swinging,” Deku moans, massaging down the bruise splotching his high cheekbone.

“That’s what you fucking get for trying to pull me back,” he shrugs indifferently. He then spits into a patch of grass that must’ve been flattened by his and Medusa’s tumbling. “Fucking punch hurts like a bitch,” he snarls.

"What? Can't take heat from a granny?"

"Shut up, grandmas always hit the hardest. Always reaches for the wooden stick instead of the slipper first." Bakugou mumbles through experience. His mom might be a difficult daughter of a bitch, but the said bitch she's kin of is the devil in her own right.

To the side, Todoroki is attempting to help Medusa up, though, she quickly bats away his hand, easily leaping onto her two feet, locating Bakugou with an aura murderous intent.l

“Hey, apple core,” it’s almost amusing how Todoroki continues doing his own thing, before processing his statement and glancing upwards like a startled cat, “the fuck are you helping her for? Doesn’t she hate Athena’s kids?”

Todoroki shrugs. “She’s my mother’s enemy.” He then points to him. “However you're my biggest nuisance.”

That’s it, fuck fighting Medusa, she’s more tolerable than Todoroki.

* * *

“Okay so we spared her-” 

“I spared _ you _ guys.” Medusa corrects.

“So why is she traveling with us?” Todoroki asks impatiently, glaring at Bakugou.

Bakugou ignores him.

Midoriya is lounging behind Todoroki, glancing cautiously at Medusa, yet, not at all judgmental. If anything, he knows Midoriya too well. 

He pities her.

His own possible murderer.

“I mean. We did burn down her establishment. She still needs a place to make coin, bro,” Kirishima shrugs.

“Bakugou I can’t believe you destroyed her place.” Yaoyorozu sighs.

He shrugs. “The Mist was too strong there, probably because of all the strange things inside. Felt unsafe for mortals.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose!” Medusa snaps.

“But you did on accident, does it matter your intentions if it still continuously happens?” Bakugou shrugs insouciantly. "You're not cut out for living in the mortal world if you keep on killing them."

“Right, okay, I mean,” Kirishima intervenes, probably sensing their redeveloping tension, and wanting to avoid another throw down. “Hearing your story bro, I know you don’t vibe with Poseidon. Or Athena.” Kirishima says. Bakugou suspects he hasn’t learned about Medusa’s perspective of what happened between her and the two gods, “so why are you helping us out? Or following us?" And he doesn't know about the fact that Medusa's probably just trailing after them because she _has_ nothing else going for her. Thousands of years of staying alive and unable to drag herself out of her own misery, out of a story that follows her no matter what century she's in-

Yeah no shit she's grasping onto this thin thread of possibility that maybe she can find another ending for herself in this reincarnated life. 

“I’m not helping you guys out, I’m following you guys because I don’t have anywhere to go. I want to gain an audience with Poseidon, he can’t ignore me if I come with you guys. Though. Knowing him," she jerks a thumb at him, "maybe it'll be worse for me. The gods must think you’re impertinent, for messing around so recklessly in their realm.” She laughs, and Bakugou jerks away from her. 

She's like if Kirishima was raised on every angsty Wattpad Y/N background. Stupidly smile, but with an entire fucking suitcase of trauma that's too heavy to board onto Bakugou's flight.

“That’s because I am.” Bakugou shrugs. “Same goes with you, going with your plan of forcefully gaining their attention by following us.”

“I’m _ less _ arrogant than you, because I’m actually a whole part of this world. You’re only half. And a newbie.”

“I want to shoot the gods,” Bakugou sighs, her words reminding him how disastrous of a situation he’s in right now. 

“You know, you’re better. You seem less bias towards the gods.” She says, almost admirably.

“I am.”

“Yeah like. You ever take a good look at yourself and wonder if the gods are just using you as a pawn? You can’t trust the gods. Especially the male ones,” Medusa nods at Midoriya, who simply looks over with a tired and unblinking expression, looking like he channeled his inner college student.

“Listen, I get you’re coming from an insightful place with deep truths, but I can genuinely reassure you, that I’m too aware of that perspective and I’ve been already losing sleep over it,” Midoriya informs listlessly, raising a hand with a floppy limb.

Medusa now seems more disconcerted than disdainful towards them. “You guys all seem close,” Medusa finally says nonchalantly, probably wanting to change the subject since Midoriya's a fucking downer.

“I. Fuck off,” Bakugou snaps.

“We’re not,” Todoroki adds amiably, agreeing with him for once.

“Uh, close but not necessarily friendly?” Deku attempts to placate, looking very confused himself.

"Hell yeah!" Kirsihima snorts, looking very amused by Bakugou's obvious annoyance.

“We cooperate, and it’s a fun group. I like everyone.” Yaoyorozu says, surprising Bakugou by the candidness in her tone. She doesn’t appear to find him disruptive? 

“Strange. Given that there are two kids from Athena and one from Poseidon.” Medusa hums. “Seeing how you guys cling onto the past-” and Bakugou coughs out a bark of laughter at the way she seems so determined to insult Ponytail and Todoroki in every breath, “I assumed you would be naturally thorny with someone from Poseidon’s kin, too.” And it's eerily entertaining, the way that she's so petty towards their other two travelers despite agreeing to stop projecting her hate towards the gods onto them. 

“I mean.” Todoroki shrugs. “I’m adversed to making friends. Not because he’s Poseidon’s son, but because I hate people.”

A silence falls on them at that proclamation.

“You’re so edgy,” Bakugou finally says.

“I don’t like to be prejudiced,” Yaoyorozu finally says, cheeks flushed. “I-” she turns to Medusa. “I want to apologize, since that’s how I acted towards you, but. I can’t trust you,” she adds, tone steely. "You could kill us so easily, and there's no reason for you not to."

Medusa just waves her off flippantly. “What can we do about it,” she says, and Bakugou feels like he’s missing something. And Bakugou, not for the first time, is glad he feels nothing for the gods. Allows him to think whatever he wants without shame. 

“Also, are you Japanese?” Bakugou asks curiously, saying so to also dispel some of the tension. 

“No?”

Bakugou frowns. Then how were they all communicating so fluidly? There’s no way they all spoke English, after all.

“We’ve been unconsciously speaking ancient Greek,” Yaoyorozu informs, sounding not at all surprised. “I noticed this while we were in the restaurant. I don’t know how I didn’t realize this earlier, though. Right now we're all speaking in Japanese. Medusa, I guess you're one of the monsters who can understand most languages."

“See, weird magic Mist-like manipulation was at play,” Bakugou snorts. “Destroying that place was for the better."

"So were we speaking to the Furies in Greek as well?" Midoriya inquires curiously.

"Japanese," Kirishima shakes his head. "The Furies know every ancient and modern language. They have to, after all. There are a few monsters who remember their old languages, but the Furies are special in the sense that they're active everywhere and every day, as they deal with every kind of soul that's processing in the Underworld. Therefore they'd just have to know every language. Medusa, do you know you're speaking Japanese with us?"

"Yeah. I picked up many languages over my thousands of years. Not much to do, anyways," Medusa shrugs. 

"Huh." Bakugou mumbles. "But we know Ancient Greek, huh. So you’re Greek?” He asks Medusa, too pertinently aware of the fact that she’s barely shorter than her. Isn’t she an adult? _ Well. I doubt the gods really cared if who they went after were children or not. _

Bile gunks the walls of his throat.

“Mm. I don’t know. Technically, I’m not human. I don’t divide into things such as race, ethnicity, and so forth,” Medusa finally replies cautiously, as if unsure what to make of the fact she’s travelling and conversing normally with a group of demigods with three-fifth of them being descendants of her own assaulter and his indirect enabler. 

Or maybe she’s cautious around Bakugou, who earlier straight up slammed the back of her head with his knee, and apparently gave her a headache.

But not in the way he was thinking.

Rather, a migraine because then her entire head full of snakes started hissing complaints.

So apparently Medusa’s head is full of snakes.

And she names them.

The one that really hates Bakugou is apparently called ‘Leo’. The one that claimed Todoroki was telling the truth was Selene. Apparently, Selene's a very good lie-detector, due to the fact she's highly sensitive to vibrations, including others' breathing. Combined with the fact that as a snake she has heat sensors, she has a good idea if one is sweating out of nervousness.

In other words: Selene is a fucking danger to society and Bakugou doesn't like her. Standing next to Medusa, he refuses to focus on background noise, knowing now that it’s constructed of hundreds of hissing snakes.

“Okay, we. We need to find glasses or something for her she can’t walk around like this,” he gestures at her entire gothic ensemble, pointing to her veil, cutting off whatever conversation was happening around him while he was in deep thought. “This isn’t Japanese street fashion. It’s gotta go.”

“I mean. We’re still in New York. No one cares in New York,” Yaoyorozu claims. “Besides, LA is even more wild, she’s not that strange.”

“But right now we’re in the countryside with cows and cornstalks and yee yee people,” Bakugou remarks. "They're going to think she's a cultist."

“You look like you have red eyes,” Medusa retorts sharply. “And him,” she points at Todoroki. “What about him _ isn’t _ distinctive?”

Todoroki bows.

Bakugou wants to fucking kick his head off.

“Condiments,” he calls. Todoroki blinks, and to his entertainment, he then glares at Bakugou as if knowing he’s referring to him. 

“Condiments?” Kirishima blinks.

“Ketchup and Mayonnaise,” he points to Todoroki’s alternating hair colour. He then gestures to the Pikachu hat that’s comically dangling by its snapback clip closed around one of the loops of his jeans. “Mustard.” He smiles smugly. "And yeah, you're pretty distinctive, but he's not going to be walking around looking like the antichrist in the countryside where we _know_ cults are alive."

"As if L.A. doesn't have cults," Yaoyorozu shrugs. "We should have her keep her attire. It'll probably gain us favor once we reach there." She strategizes.

"I think her outfit looks wicked!" Kirishima beams.

"Won't you die wearing that? Aren't you hot?" Deku asks nervously.

"Oh totally!" Medusa replies brightly from underneath her hat brim. They look at her. "I'm cold-blooded."

They freeze.

* * *

“What’s that?”

“A necklace!” 

“I can see that.” Bakugou replies dryly.

Kirishima hums, unknotting the leather string of his necklace, and to Bakugou’s surprise, hands it over. “All the beads represent special events or just mementos for me.” He explains. “All campers have this.”

“Like a real summer camp,” Bakugou mutters, glancing at the painted clay beads.

They’re miserable, sitting back in the forest on wet leaves. Thankfully it’s not that cold nor warm, so Kirishima hadn’t asked for his sweater back. And they're in the shade of the forest, thank god. Now Medusa _won't_ have a heat induced stroke out in the middle of the road. And sure, she grumbled that as a monster she's way more resilient than they give her credit for, and that a heatstroke could barely put a dent on her health, but there's something stressful about having to deal with a collapsed and possibly comatosed monster. 

“You guys will probably get one soon, too,” Kirishima informs him and Midoriya. Bakugou pretends like he can’t see Medusa’s odd fixation on the necklace in his hands.

"Yeah if we make it back alive," Bakugou snorts. 

“So all your beads are different?” Midoriya inquires curiously, and Bakugou hands Kirishima's necklace back.

“Yeah. We all have different life experiences.” Kirishima answers. “One camper, Aoyama, he has a bead no one else has. It’s painted black with only a single white eye.”

“What does it represent?” Midoriya inquires curiously.

“Oh. He got an eyeball tattooed onto his stomach with a tattoo machine my cabin leader, Hatsume, made.”

“Oh!"

“He got an infection!”

“Oh.”

“And then we learned he had anemia!” 

“_Oh_.”

* * *

“When’s Todoroki and Momo getting back? I thought they were going to a nearby drugstore.” Medusa finally asks, after they played their third round of ‘Never Have I Ever’. 

Kirishima was extremely surprised that apparently none of them had consistent life or death situations including giant birds, ogres, and a good handful of idiocy.

Even Medusa could not relate to him. Apparently, for the past couple eons she was mostly on the downlow, finding joy in unconventional statue making.

“Thought you didn’t like them around,” Bakugou scoffs outright.

She shrugs. “They’re what? Babies? Can’t get too mad at them.”

Bakugou stares. “How old are you?”

_ “Should you be asking for my age-” _

“You’re like. What. Only a couple thousand years old?”

“Fuck off.”

“You sound pretty modern for someone that age.”

“Of course! I have the internet.” She exclaims.

“You can use the internet?”

She stares at them. “Can you...not?”

“I mean.” Bakugou shrugs. “Just surprised. Thought you’d be like. Boomer.”

“Listen, I became a monster around...fourteen? Fifteen?” She frowns. “I’m not sure. I was young, of marriageable age.”

Bakugou blinks hard. "Yeah. Fourteen. Marriageable age,” he says hollowly. Medusa shrugs at this.

“Yeah so I still look at that age, because that’s when I became a monster,” she explains. “So I tend to act like a teenager. I don't know why." She hums. "Probably because I don't feel like an adult, and knowing I don't look like one just inclines me to act this way even more. Even though, I definitely don't look the same as I did as a human. She should see my eyes!" 

"Yeah, I'll do that one day," Bakugou promises. 

"My snakes also say I still look pretty. The internet says otherwise, but obviously they've never looked at my face anyways," and just by her voice, it sounds like she's rolling her eyes. She's so expressive even with two-thirds of her face covered. 

“Right. Your snakes.” Bakugou says hollowly at that, unsure how he feels about that. "You sound like a hag."

At this, Medusa clicks her tongue, sharpening her words, "should I freeze you right now, huh?" But she still sounds friendly, as if joking. Wild. He doesn't know how he feels about her.

"You sound pretty fun," Kirishima compliments.

"Pretty is subjective, we could argue there's no real standards for ugly," Midoriya says, and Bakugou's going to kick his lungs in for trying to open a debate. 

“Hey," Bakugou cuts Deku off, unwilling to enter that conversation. "Is it really fine if we continue to call you Medusa?"

She shrugs. “If you want. It’s not a common name, though, isn’t it?”

At this, Kirishima inclines his head. “Want a new name?”

Bakugou turns to him slowly. “That’s a really weird thing to offer. No one’s going to question the name ‘Medusa’, they’ll just wave it off as a nickname.”

“I mean. Why not give her an actual nickname; makes things more inconspicuous for us when people notice us. We can use all the discrepancy we can get,” Midoriya points out. “Do you mind?” And Bakugou supposes the next time he ends up on the news, he'd rather not have people start gossiping that he's joined a cult that follows around a leader nicknamed 'Medusa'.

Medusa shrugs flippantly. “I don’t care,” she admits. “I’m tired of being known as Medusa.” And Bakugou thinks that simply shedding the identity of Medusa doesn’t resolve anything: the name itself and how everyone sees her will still remain the same. It's still equally sad.

He supposes it’s not his place to say anything though, and it’s not like they can do anything about that in the first place.

“Cool. What about Marceline?” Midoriya says.

“What the fuck sort of name is ‘Marceline’?” Bakugou butchers the name completely. He might know English, but only the vocabulary.

“It’s a pretty name,” Midoriya wilts. “There was a TV show character that had that name.”

“That’s. A bit long,” Kirishima admits sheepishly. “Can we choose a name easy to remember? I don’t really know any English names.”

“Marcy.” Midoriya compromises.

“Sounds too close to ‘Macy’s’.” Bakugou disagrees.

“What the heck is a Macy?” Kirishima blinks. “Oh! I heard of this name before, ‘Marmalade’, we can use that!”

“No.” Bakugou instantly shuts down.

“Kirishima...that’s. That’s not a-” Midoriya guiltily tries to explain.

“Marsupial,” Bakugou starts throwing in random words now.

“Mary.” Midoriya finally sighs. “It’s easy.”

“Mary is such a boring name,” Medusa groans. “I want flare."

“Marceline, then,” Midoriya perks up.

“No Marceline,” Bakugou barks. “Maria,” he says. It’s common in Japan, so it won’t be difficult for everyone to pronounce.

“Gods, no, I had a difficult customer named ‘Maria’. She tried to eat our plastic straws,” Medusa shakes her head vehemently.

“Matryoshka,” Kirishima says.

“Like Momo’s purse?” Midoriya frowns.

“Momo Two, then,” Kirishima suggests seriously.

“No.” This time, it’s Medusa not taking this bullshit.

"Masculine," Bakugou tosses in boredly.

"Marty?" Deku suggests doubtfully.

"Mapodofu." Bakugou yawns.

"We're not calling her after food, we've settled that with Marmalade," Deku sighs.

"Marmalade is a food?" Kirishima blinks, looking genuinely surprised. 

“Mina,” Bakugou finally says, seeing that this conversation isn’t going anywhere. “It’s short, we use it in Japan, it’s a vibe.”

“Mina?” Midoriya frowns. “But. Marcel-”

“Mina.” Bakugou bites. Midoriya’s frown deepens.

“Yeah, it’s easy to pronounce, so I don’t care,” Kirishima says amiably. Midoriya shrugs, clearly still miffed about the ‘Marceline’ thing.

“Yes, short, easy to remember, and concise!” Kirishima cheers like this is a market slogan. “Mina it is!”

* * *

“Hi, sorry we’re late, got chased by a security guard, had to run around to lose him.” Yaoyorozu gasps the moment she breaks through the foliage around the area of the woods they're nestled in.

"Got lost," Todoroki says, walking nonchalantly in after her. 

“Why?” Bakugou recoils, thinking about his ‘wanted’ posters pasted everywhere.

“Uh. Shoplifting.” Todoroki answers flatly, before dumping a pile of clothes in Bakugou’s lap. Bakugou scowls at this, before beginning to search for a regular shirt to steal as his own. “Anyways. We pulled it off.”

“By _ running?” _ Midoriya says uneasily, and Mina is already digging through the pile of clothes.

“Didn’t know you had it in you,” Bakugou tells Todoroki dryly. Todoroki just ignores him. Dick.

“Oh geez, pink!”

Bakugou turns around, raising a brow at Mina who’s now ripping off her cloak to reveal an undershirt, and is tugging on a regular, pink t-shirt. “Heck yeah!” And he didn’t take her to like pink, given her previous gothic nun-like cosplay. He then notices something.

It looks like her shirt stretches all the way down to her fingers, like she’s wearing a bodysuit. “Are you _ pink?” _ He asks incredulously. 

“Oh yeah. You know how sometimes reptiles are pink because of albinism or just being amelanistic?”

“Uh. Sure.” 

“Yeah. So that affected me.”

“So your. Your snakes are pink?” Midoriya begins, eyes latching onto her giant hat with its veil, clearly curious like the freak he is. Yeah, and Bakugou forgot that Deku was an information whore. 

“Yep,” Mina suddenly yanks off her hat’s veil to quickly snap on a pair of black sunglasses and Bakugou stares at the fucking metal tag still looped around the bridge of the lenses. "This is nice. And," she scoffs, rolling her eyes, "Guys, stop complaining, I'll take off my hat later," she murmurs.

"Okay, Mina, you gotta stop talking to yourself." Deku says, staring.

"I'm not? I'm talking to Tobias and his brothers." She frowns.

But Bakugou is too busy staring at the obvious stolen tag. “Oh my god. Even if none of you guys have stolen anything before, why would you take the stuff with _ tags?” _ Bakugou groans, as he rips off Kirishima’s hoodie to yank on a regular white t-shirt. “What the fuck?”

At this, Todoroki shrugs once more. “Like I said. I’m a rich kid.” Then he gasps, and they all turn to him, startled and concerned by his uncharacteristic expressiveness. He turns to Bakugou, and Bakugou recoils at his intense gaze. "Bakugou I never got to eat a burger like you promised."

Bakugou stares.

He then grabs one of the shirts, and before Todoroki can react, knocks him onto the forest floor and smothers him with it.

  
  
  


_ Day 1 of 10, of Bakugou’s personal hell. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this chapter isn't too boring since i know there's a lot of dialogue haha  
anyways next chapter is going to include more of midoriya's pov. i feel like. he'd really regret not drawing his sword on the furies especially after they seriously injured bakugou. bc like midoriya totally has a hero complex, no matter who the victim is. like bakugou or not, midoriya's ain't going to discriminate his pound of guilt over others lol  
me: what if i just combined ethical issues into here. lol.
> 
> jksdldfjafjs my biggest fear: being called a sjw. 
> 
> also me: lmaooooo it ain't political propaganda if it's just human rights topics ;^)
> 
> anyways i'm going to fucking throw hands at the gods. and i'm aware there's some perspectives of medusa's story that athena actually gave her the ability to turn ppl into stone to protect her from other men who wanted to assault her but like,,, then medusa straight up helped perseus kill medusa so i was like,,, "mmmmm idk man". also back then, though ancient greek was progressive, it was still very male dominated and very misogynistic therefore uh i wouldn't doubt athena at that time would've done that out of mercy for medusa. if she wanted to help medusa, as a great strategist, i feel like she would've found some other way that wouldn't have depicted medusa as a monster as she would've foreseen that.
> 
> also just for backstory, VERY simplified you should read more on it bc i definitely will not include details:
> 
> OG, medusa didn't exist. her powers just existed (as a gorgon's ugly head with powers) that was used in one of the old stories. and then ppl were like "shit we gotta explain where this head came from" so they made up medusa, and actually wrote her and poseidon just having chill sex in a flower field. she was always considered a really hideous monster- like there wasn't a story that "oh, she became a gorgon" it was just she was born one. 
> 
> meanwhile, there's a story of athena aiding perseus and at one point he slays medusa. when this was written, athena/minerva had absolutely ZERO connection to medusa. like. athena was just there bc she was known for helping out heroes ALL the time.
> 
> then a roman writer was like "nah fuck that" years later, and was like "neptune raped medusa, who was oiringlaly a human in minerva's temple, and minvera was like 'girl tf' and cursed her." and so everyone associates athena aiding perseus as a "oh. minerva has a hatred for medusa" when in reality that story was written way before their hatred was even developed. 
> 
> and that's medusa whoo. 
> 
> anyways! pls drop a comment or a kudos! i'd really appreciate a comment, especially if you guys have any suggestions especially over whether or not you liked the more serious undertone of this chapter (like by 'serious' i just mean like. less of bakugou's internalized screaming liek that's literally it bc this chapter really isn't even that serious either despite the heavy topic at one point).


	5. midoriya reached stage -1 of todoroki's friendship hearts: unlocked? Tragic Backstory!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- man idek.  
\- ares shows up  
\- kirishima gets pets. also dogs hate him lol  
\- midoriya's like actually so done with everything  
\- bakugou is too, ngl  
\- todoroki: DADDY ISSUES  
\- mina: medusa instincts come out  
\- deku can't swim.  
\- bakugou: anger anger anger  
\- deku: anger anger anger  
\- oh shit i should probably actually list out plot points: uh golden gate arch or whatever (me, having to rewrite that scene like eighty times bc i didn't actually know what the arch was and thought it was a bridfge and wasn't aware of how it worked), love tunnels for like. two passages  
\- IRIS. sero's existence.

Midoriya gazes at the crack in the floor. The way that red light pulsates out the ravine, highlighting his tanned legs brown, reflecting scarlet off of his chipped nails.

_ The ghosts don’t like it. _ He can tell just by the way they cloud around his ankles, possess the fabric of his shirt and yank hard, as if urging him to take a step back.

Midoriya does, and the ravine seems to yawn wider.

The lights go out.

  
  


He freezes in the darkness. It’s lonely.

And while he always correlated sadness and loneliness together- there’s always an inherent fear in their undertone. 

_ “Little hero. So frail.” _ A voice crawls out of the hole with shaky letters and a heavy sentiment. And the hole feels bottomless; Midoriya _ knows _ it’s bottomless.

He swallows dryly.

_ “But. _You'll do.”

For a moment, Midoriya was nearly offended to the point of self-awareness. What a backhanded compliment.

However, the unfathomability of his statement leeches any other perspective Midoriya could possibly have of it. And while he does not understand, the ghosts around him appear to, as the numbness creeping down his arms halts as the pricks and tingles of the electrifying atmosphere tell him to _ move _.

_ “They have misled you, child. _” 

And, like a spotlight, a sudden orb of gold glitches into view, providing a radius of light that doesn’t stretch far enough to tell Midoriya if he’s in a cavern, or under an endlessly black sky. 

His breath frosts in his throat, and it feels almost tangible. 

It’s Mitsuki-san.

_ “Barter with me. Even the gods cannot provide you with what they don’t have- bring me the bolt, and I’ll bring down those arrogant and conniving fools.” _

Midoriya feels like he’s supposed to respond. He also hadn’t said anything this entire time, which he supposes is mildly rude of him. 

“Uh. That’s not my mom,” he blurts without forethought. 

The air stills, and so do the ghosts.

Midoriya rewinds his sentence. _ Oh wait I technically didn’t respond to what they said. _

_ “What?” _

Midoriya licks his lips.

“Um. Nothing.”

_ “This isn’t your mom?” _

“It. It is?” He has no idea why he’s lying, but he also _ doesn’t _ know why the voice sounds rather perturbed by the fact that Mitsuki isn’t his mom. 

_ “This isn’t your mom.” _

“No. She. She is.”

Even he sounds unsure to his own ears. Who sounds unsure about the identity of their _ mom? _

Then, the undead clinging onto Midoriya tightens, and he gapes, the air stomped out of his lungs by the immense pressure of the atmosphere. Almost ludicrously, he muses that he must look the same way the Mitsuki-san does at the moment: crushed to death. He twitches, his feet scrabbling uselessly against the floor.

The ghosts weren’t pushing him away.

The Thing in the pit was always using him to pull Itself up.

_ “Foolish.” _ Echoes out from The End, and Midoriya wheezes, gasping, and he sits up.

And for a second, he thinks he’s still next to the ravine, seeing the darkness shadowing his gaze and his vision adjusting to nothing.

Then he realizes it’s dawn.

And the air smells like dirt.

Forest. That was a dream. He wasn't in a cave, that was a dream.

They’re in the forest.

Shifting hurriedly onto his elbows, he slants his eyes to peer at his surroundings, and finds Todoroki next to him, lying perfectly still on his back, face to the stars. Bakugou is propped tiredly against a tree, and Yaoyorozu is curled up at Kirishima’s feet, and the dog is peeing against Midoriya’s sneaker-

He does a double take.

_ “What the-” _

_ “Deku, shut _up!”

* * *

“You can’t just do that.” Todoroki says helpfully.

“I’ll do whatever I want.” 

Midoriya’s been quiet after his rather loud outburst. However, he finally asks: “Kacchan, you like _ dogs?” _

Bakugou in fact, does not. 

He actually does not like anything.

If anything, he hates everything.

He still gives the poodle a hard pat, though.

To the side, Yaoyorozu groans, slowly crawling onto her knees, her back kidney-bean bent from sleeping on the forest floor. “Huh?” She blinks blearily, before squinting. The dog boldly stares back with no hesitation. _ “Huh?” _

“Baku found a dog,” Kirishima fills her in jauntingly, as he reaches over for the fifth time, proving himself once again, to be a dumbass who does not learn from his mistakes.

Bakugou watches mercilessly as the poodle tears through his fingers with a snarl.

“I can’t believe the poodle won’t allow someone like Kirishima to pet him, but lets _ Bakugou _ hold him,” Mina murmurs.

The audacity this lady has, given that she literally just joined their group hours ago after trying to curbstomp Deku’s neck like they were car brakes.

Bakugou Does Not See the parallels between her situation and his own. 

Bakugou flips her off, yet, keeps one hand on the dog’s frail spine. “Listen, I hate dogs, ya mutts,” he points directly at Midoriya, who just squints, as if offended. Bakugou can’t believe him. _ “But _, this dog pissed on Deku’s shoe in the middle of the night, so it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine I can’t believe you guys found a _ dog _ , what’s a poodle doing out in the middle of the woods in the middle of _ nowhere?” _ Yaoyorozu gripes in disbelief. “It’s. It’s _ pink.” _ And she sounds even more disturbed by this than by her previous complaint.

“Yeah. She has the aesthetic,” Mina says smugly. “Her name is Gladiola, and look,” she holds up a rumpled sheet of paper that the dog had between her teeth when Deku found her. “She’s our ticket west,” she taps against the listed prize money on the ‘MISSING DOG’ sheet. 

“You can talk to animals?” Midoriya gapes at the same time Todoroki says: "certainly looks like a Gladiola."

“Well. I mean. I can talk to serpents, snakes, usually a lot of the cold-blooded species even though they have different languages and there’s obviously a culture barrier but we can typically sort of you know, _ vibe _ . With _ mammals, _” she inhales between her fangs, “certainly a bit more difficult, it’s like a Japanese person trying to communicate with a Spanish speaker. But, snake two-hundred-and-fifty-eight, who is Adelpha, has picked up a lot on the domesticated canine languages due to the strays she would talk to while I fed them outside.”

“This sounds fake,” Bakugou says. “Like. Cartoon fake.”

“So does your character but you don’t find me shitting on it-”

Midoriya jerks a thumb at the poodle. “Wait, I. Okay so are we going to return her?”

“Well of course,” Mina exclaims, effectively distracted from converting Bakugou’s permanent scowl _ literally _ permanent with just a blink. “Also, Momo,” she chirps, and Yaoyorozu flinches, clearly startled by her sudden acknowledgment. The two don’t seem to be on bad terms, but from what Bakugou has witnessed yesterday, certainly not on the best, either. “Say hello.”

“What?” Yaoyorozu blinks.

“Gladiola. She wants a ‘hello’.” Mina expounds roughly.

Yaoyorozu turns to Bakugou, as if he could clear anything up.

He does. “Say hello to her.” He <strike> threatens </strike>instructs.

She just stares even longer. Then, her eyes lower to the dog, who’s staring expectantly at her. “Hello.”

Bakugou whips his head over to Todoroki, who’s waterfalling their limited water out of its Poland Springs container. “You say it.”

“What?” He gurgles on the water, choking.

“Shitfish,” he begins impatiently. “I said hello to the dog. You say hello to the dog.”

He blinks.

“I’m not saying hello to a poodle.”

Gladiola growls, her entire body tremoring in Bakugou’s large hands.

Todoroki stares.

Todoroki then says hello to the dog.

Before Bakugou can say anything, Midoriya waves. “Hello,” he says, injecting his voice with saccharine liveliness knowing full well if he doesn’t give it his all, there’s no way the absolute resentment and anger over his urine-soaked shoes would be masked from the dog.

He’s sure that animals tend to have better instincts when it comes to reading people, anyways.

* * *

“You know, I’m glad I got rid of the tight My Little Pony t-shirt, but this isn’t any better,” Midoriya sighs, picking at the stolen outfit. He lucked out- everyone else already took the clothes they liked, leaving them behind with a just a few pairs of clean underwear, a really unfortunate cowboy hat that Yaoyorozu snagged last minute for no reason, a Sonic the Hedgehog jacket with a bunch of foreign Chinese words printed randomly on its side, and a Peppa Pig shirt.

Midoriya, unsurprisingly, took the last choice. 

“Peppa Pig is also an aesthetic,” Mina reassures, plucking the sleeve of his newer cartoon t-shirt.

“You say that about anything that looks like it was deep-fried in a batter of Pepsi-Bismol,” Bakugou snarls.

“What is that?” Mina frowns.

“Think of medicine, but in the colour of Kirby,” Kirishima suggests.

They wait awkwardly outside of the house whose address was on Gladiola’s missing poster, all of them looking very lost, very out of place, and like they’ve recently raided a thrift store with the fashion sense of a blind man. So like Macklemore’s henchmen. 

Then, the front door creaks open, and they perk up. Yaoyorozu, the only one who speaks fluent English and can pass off as a socially acceptable being, steps out proudly.

She stops in front of them, retying her ponytail, smiling. “God, I love rich people,” she hums, showing a wad of American cash. “This is definitely enough for tickets on the Amtrack.”

“The what?” Kirishima peers over curiously.

“It’s like an American metro.” She explains rushedly. “They gave me instructions, too: we just have to follow this road and it’ll lead us onto the main road. There, we’ll find the stop to the left.”

And _ finally _ . Yesterday’s failures had tightened Midoriya's sinews and left him uneasy to the point where he couldn’t properly sleep. Time is slipping and he knows it but he can’t do _ anything about _ it, despite how unsatisfactorily _ blameless _ he is in the entire situation he was dragged into. 

Hopeless.

But now, it feels like they’re finally getting somewhere.

* * *

“I can’t believe they let us on,” Bakugou mumbles, glancing around.

“I can. America doesn’t have standards,” Todoroki replies.

“They’re not big on the upkeep when it comes to public sanitation. Guess that works for us,” Yaoyorozu sighs. 

They’re a group of children, smeared in dirt, smelling like a bonfire despite burying their old clothes in the forest (and Bakugou figures if forest spirits are a thing in western mythology, they’d be cursing them). At least any lasting blood has flaked off by this point. They just look like shabby and sleep-deprived.

In other words, they essentially fit right in with literally every other American within their age-demographic that’s slumped on this train. The only difference is that one of them smells like cotton-candy juul juice, and the other smells like wet but burnt matches. 

Nobody even blinked when they sat down. 

“I never rode on one of these. It’s rather smooth, certainly much smoother than chariots. Doesn’t have the same feeling, though,” Mina comments, and Bakugou frowns, eyes flitting from her to the people around them.

Everyone else doesn’t appear to notice that someone who looks like they cracked a hot pink highlighter over her skin is sitting right next to them, except for a young kid who hasn’t peeled his eyes off of her from across the aisle.

Bakugou scowls, slumping even farther down his seat, ignoring Mina who’s seated across from him, facing him, feet kicking up as she stares eye-wide around her.

“Hey, you-” Todoroki attempts to address him. 

“Fuck off,” he snarls at the goddamn half-finished colouring book, who slid in next to them, with Deku on his other side.

“You can’t say that out loud! We’re in public,” Kirishima gapes, looking very offended from where he’s sitting next to Mina, making them a pair of discombobulated and unstable atoms vibrating within their seats.

“Everyone else literally can’t understand Japanese-”

“Oh my gosh, centaurs!” Mina cuts Bakugou off, pressing her face against the window.

Blearily, he glances to the side, only to shift upright.

Holy shit.

“What the fuck. What is that?” Bakugou says bluntly. “Goat centaurs?” His eyebrows scrunch together.

Next to him, Todoroki crunches forward to get a look. “Oh. Satyrs?” Just like when he first heard of ‘centaurs', Bakugou has no idea what they are. “They're a species.”

Bakugou doesn’t respond to that, and instead refocuses his attention to them. They’re losing speed in comparison to their modern-day train, but the fact that they’re still able to run fast enough to keep up, is simultaneously terrifying and impressive.

He glances at the bare plains that seem to carry nothing.

It’s like they’re disconnected from the cities or countrysides of the United States.

He sits back down, and glances about once more. Past their little booth, no one else appears invested in staring outside- they’re too occupied by their phones or by their books. Fair enough. Nobody’s going to look outside at flat plains thinking there’d be anything out there in the first place.

It’s so _ weird _ though, how Bakugou knows even if they do take a peek, they won’t see a family of hybrid species (or not even hybrids- wouldn’t centaurs themselves classify as just one species even if to Bakugou, it feels like they’re something composed of two?). They’d probably just see horses. 

Or, on the other side of the spectrum, they could see a horde of flashers on a cocaine run with the lungs and thigh muscles of a cheetah.

Trippy. 

“This is fun! I haven’t been outside like,” Kirishima hums, “_ ever _. Like yeah I lived in the mortal world for most of my life, but I never was allowed to like. Actually ride on trains or go downtown or just. Do anything. You know. Couldn’t even own a phone because it attracted weird things.”

Bakugou doesn’t know how to respond to that.

But Kirishima seems unbothered and happy, so whatever.

“I know, it’s like. Yeah, our world is cool and all, but we’re still half-humans. It’s like. We never get to experience that side of things,” Yaoyorozu beams, and Bakugou’s sick of them saying such cryptically uncomfortable things with such a casual attitude.

At least when he sidles his gaze over to Deku, even _ he _ appears disconcerted by their moods.

Bakugou never had a problem with monsters. Sure, in retrospect, probably a lot of his weird life-death situations (the minor percentage that _ wasn’t _ caused by Satoshi’s neglect and recklessness) probably had root in his demigod blood, but Bakugou’s never _ done _ anything. He had no friends to hang out with (never wanted any, anyways), never left home because he doesn’t trust Satoshi to _ not _ pull stupid shit on his ma, and never owned his own electronics because he’s extremely destructive and somehow even broke his ma’s old Nokia phone. Yeah, those phones, the ones that could survive a hit-and-run with a minivan for a small Italian family.

Can’t end up in life-threatening situations if you have no life. 

Besides.

His blood works hard- but Satoshi’s stink works harder.

The real question is how come _ Deku _ , who was implied to have a very strong demigod scent due to his upbringing, only find out about monsters and immortals _ now? _

“That’s rough,” Midoriya finally says sympathetically.

“Nah,” Kirishima shakes his head, smiling. “Had more fun in camp than I ever had in the mortal world, anyways.”

Yaoyorozu doesn’t say anything.

“The mortal world, hm. I stayed out of the modern world as much as possible- much easier. Less stressful,” Mina admits. “I never rode on fancy transportation before. I wanna see a mall! Lots of my customers talk about them, say they’re great.”

Bakugou thinks about the time he got blacklisted by their local mall after locking a security guard out on the fire exit.

“They’re not as cracked up as you think they’d be,” Bakugou says.

“I rarely go to malls, but I remember going to them when I was a kid.” Midoriya jumps in. “They’re super fun! I. I used to go to them with my mom.”

“I heard they had lots of clothes!” Mina gasps.

“Oh, they have libraries in them, too, right?” Yaoyorozu leans forward. “I always wanted to go to one, but I never felt safe leaving my house alone or with just human friends,” she smiles sheepishly. 

“I wasn’t allowed out of the house,” Todoroki says tonelessly.

Bakugou takes a moment. “What th-”

“Oh! They have playgrounds in them, too, right?” Kirishima interrupts loudly.

“Some of them,” Midoriya answers.

“Yeah, the one I lived by had one. I always went whenever I could.”

Bakugou zones them out, bored of the conversation. He looks out again, wondering if anything else would show up. “Hey,” he says in particular to no one, “how long will this ride take?”

“Two days.” Yaoyorozu answers firmly.

Bakugou’s head jerks up so fast his left ear bangs against the window. 

He’s clearly not the only one shook by this answer, given by the way Kirishima looks ashen and Mina is half-frozen in a talking gesture.

“Seriously?” Midoriya finally says lowly.

“No way.” Mina whispers.

“Two days,” Kirishima murmurs absent-mindedly.

“Yeah. With how many people we have, and the money we got, we can grab a ticket to Denver.” She says excitedly. “Of course, there, we can always grab another ticket to head even more west. But guys, that stop, it leads to the Gateway Arch!”

They look at her.

“Great. Um. What does that mean for us?” Midoriya asks with mutual excitement.

“Ah.” She pauses, crooking a finger against her chin. “Sight-seeing? If that’s fine with you guys? There’s a national monument there with amazing architecture.”

And do they have the _ time? _

“Hell yeah, go for it,” Kirishima shrugs laxly before Bakugou can voice his concerns.

Midoriya nods in agreement, “I mean. Yeah why not,” goddamn _ Deku _ says. And Bakugou just _ knows _ he’s reeling over what everyone else said: that they never really experienced the mortal world. God, a pussy to emotions. Bakugou sighs. Midoriya will definitely give into their whims just on the basis of pity.

“Where is this located?” Bakugou inquires tonelessly. 

“In Denver.” Yaoyorozu grimaces, even though what she just said means nothing to Bakugou. She’s tapping away her fingers, “that’s like. In the midwest,” she sighs. “We need to be _ west _ west.”

“Two days, I mean. Then we have like. Seven days to get to L.A. and find our way back to Zeus.” Todoroki calculates.

“Two days? On this train?” Mina groans, looking less amused about their road trip.

Frankly, Bakugou doesn’t know if he can sit still for that long, either. “Hell. As if we need to find its entrance, given that we’re already here.”

“Wrong, Hell and the Underworld are two different things-” Todoroki begins begins.

“I don’t care, I really don’t,” Bakugou returns snappishly. “Ah geez,” he slumps farther down his seat, irritated. “Two days, shit.” He scowls. 

“I mean. This feels safe,” Midoriya shrugs. “This isn’t too bad.”

“You do know all demigods are somewhere on the spectrum or have ADHD or ADD, right?” Kirishima notifies kindly.

Bakugou stiffens.

He didn’t know that.

“Great, so the lack of stimulation is going to kill us, is what I’m hearing.” Bakugou summarizes.

“Yeah,” Todoroki replies nonchalantly. And Bakugou, not for the first time, thinks about how much he detests this group.

* * *

“I’m not going to help you,” Midoriya sighs.

_ “She means a lot to you, this mortal.” _

He doesn’t answer. _ No. Say no _. Maybe then he’ll let go of Mitsuki-san.

As if. Midoriya knows better than to believe deities would preserve her if she had no use.

He doesn’t make the same mistake as last time, of actually looking over at Mitsuki-san.

_ “Young demigod, you may share the blood of the gods, but you’re still human. You’ll die, forgotten.” _

He thinks about Kacchan.

About Uraraka, about Aizawa, about _ everyone _ he met this past week, and how _ isolated _ and _ different _ he felt from all of them, yet how _ hopeful _ he is at the same time.

This time, things can be different. He doesn’t belong. He just doesn’t. But he never did with regular mortals, either. He didn’t really have friends, mostly due to his _ terrifyingly fatal _ bad luck that chased them away ( _ did you hear about how Midoriya-kun caused _ another _ car crash down Naomi’s street?) _. Though, in hindsight, he always felt like there was something off about every life-threatening situation he’s been in. For one, who nearly gets kidnapped four different times in a month by four hands, yet by only one person? And logically, what kind of person can be that big and capable of stopping a car with a single hand?

At least with these people, he has explanations for quite a _ lot _ of the scenarios he was caught in (so nice to know all those times he told his teacher there was a man standing outside of their playground with one eye or three weren’t due to his overactive imagination). And even if he doesn’t really _ want _ to be here, the people at camp actually want him here with them. They _ like _him.

Iida.

Sero.

Todoroki.

He stays quiet. 

_ “Young demigod. Neither side of your heritage sees you as worthy. The humans will not accept you, the gods do not want you. _Join me.”

Midoriya doesn’t want to talk to someone who's so condescending towards humans, towards what they’re capable of. As long as he’s remembered by the people he cares about, then whatever. He doesn’t need power. 

This Voice understands nothing. 

_ “Answer my call, and I’ll offer you more than what your father could offer.” _

Midoriya finally glances towards the pit, the ghosts swirling around his ankles, whispering mawkish promises into his ear.

He swats them away.

“I don’t want to.” He replies cheerfully.

The cavern rumbles, and Midoriya laughs.

* * *

“I’ve been having dreams, recently.” Midoriya suddenly says while Bakugou’s in the middle of trying to crush Kirishima’s hand in their sudden and very poorly executed arm wrestle.

“Who asked?” Bakugou snarks.

“You dream?” Todoroki blinks.

They look at him.

“Do you not?” Mina finally asks.

He doesn’t answer.

“Monsters dream?” Yaoyorozu blinks.

Mina smiles smugly. “Me and all my three-hundred-forty-eight snakes all do.”

Yaoyorozu looks horrified.

Frankly, Bakugou is as well. “You’re constantly surrounded by around four-hundred other voices all hours of the day?” He says, eyes wide.

Mina nods, as if she didn’t just tell them straight up she’s a psychopath. 

“Imagine being able to dream,” Todoroki says flatly. 

Midoriya pats his shoulder sympathetically.

“What were you going to say?” Yaoyorozu turns to Midoriya, who blinks, still soothing Todoroki’s upper arm, despite the boy himself appearing utterly indifferent to his admission of not being human.

“I keep on having this one dream, where I talk to someone. Or well,” he frowns, face contorting into frustrated thoughtfulness, “something, maybe? It’s like. This deep voice. From a pit, and he keeps talking to me about Mitsuki-san,” Bakugou stiffens, whirling his head over. 

And he almost wants to sneer if this is some sick joke, as if he would ever think Deku’s capable of such a thing.

“I mean. When you’re a demigod, lots of your dreams tend to be from the spiritual realm. Or the immortal realm. You really could be talking to someone for all we know,” Yaoyorozu frowns, clearly uneased by that. “A pit? I mean. That could correlate to the underworld. Especially if they’re mentioning Bakugou-san, it really could’ve been Hades you were talking to.”

“I mean. Could be. There were ghosts everywhere.” Midoriya hesitates, “I _ think _ they were ghosts. And I think we were in a cave? But I can’t really tell.”

“Yeah. Sounds underworldly,” Yaoyorozu stereotypes, but she doesn’t sound entirely convinced. 

“But Hades doesn’t-” Todoroki begins with scrunched eyebrows. 

“Show up in a pit.” Yaoyorozu continues, clearly having the same concerns as him. “In dreams, he’s always on a throne.”

Todoroki nods. “He’s a god and a king, and has pride in those titles, after all,” he finishes.

Midoriya does not look particularly pleased by this revelation. He actually looks sick. 

Sick to the point where Bakugou’s genuinely and disgruntledly glad for the first time to be seated next to Todoroki, so that if Deku blows chunks everywhere, it’ll be over him. 

“What did he say?” Mina questions curiously, looking less concerned than the Athena kids are.

“Uh. I can’t really remember it well,” Midoriya says apologetically, his eyes darting over quickly to Bakugou before retreating, irritating him. He doesn’t _ want _ an apology, doesn’t even _ think _ it’s Midoriya’s fault because who the fuck can consciously recall dreams? He feels rather offended that the twerp thinks he’s that unreasonable. “Something about wanting my help to rise to Olympus?”

At this, Yaoyorozu’s lips thin. “I mean. He isn’t on good terms with his brothers, for sure. And he doesn’t have a seat up in Olympus.”

“But that doesn’t sound like something Hades would say.” Mina flops her chin onto her hands.

Yaoyorozu narrows her eyes, not particularly at Mina, but at her shifting hands, as if thinking hard. “I don’t know who else it would be, though. You said in a sort of dark underground? Who else would live like that. And Hades is greedy, after all-”

“All gods are from what I can tell,” Bakugou snorts, and Yaoyorozu falls quiet at that.

“I don’t think Hades is greedy. Out of all of the high-ranking gods, he seems the chillest,” Mina argues. 

Bakugou doesn’t know enough about Hades to agree, doesn’t _ care _ to know enough past his general consensus of _ fuck gods _, but if Mina, who definitely shares that perspective with him, says Hades is chill, he’ll take her word for it. 

“It just. It doesn’t _ sound _ like something Hades would do or say.” Mina says, then, glancing up, “yeah, yeah, exactly,” she murmurs. Bakugou’s still not used to remembering that Mina isn’t talking to herself, but to her own hair. “I’ve heard stories about him. He’s actually rather lenient towards mortals who visit him, doesn’t seem that problematic, and I’ve only heard stories of his cruelty towards those people who tried to steal his wife.” Mina cracks her knuckles. “Something about sentient ropes but not kinky.” She frowns. “Or was it snakes? I like snakes better.”

“Wait, why was Bakugou’s mom there, though?” Kirishima intervenes, peeling a Clementine, splitting it in half and giving one portion to Mina, who has revealed to have a thing for acidic fruits ever since she earlier ate a lemon the way one does with an apple.

No one knows where she got the lemon from.

Midoriya shifts his knees. “I’m pretty sure he wanted to trade her for my help.”

“Did you say yes?” Mina inquires, oblivious to the tension at that statement.

Midoriya’s eyes flit over, as if seeking permission. Or, more likely, he’s trying to get a look at Bakugou's expression, which_ infinitely _ pisses him off even _ more _.

“Say no, because I don’t want your fucking help,” Bakugou hisses, even though earlier Midoriya made it rather clear he’d only help on his own terms for the sake of his mom, something Bakugou was actually okay with. He just. He just _ can’t _ help but get pissed whenever it’s fucking _ Deku _ treating him so cautiously. 

“I said no.” Midoriya states firmly, almost indignantly, no longer looking at him. And as if proving his independence from Bakugou’s concerns, he adds almost defensively, “because I didn’t trust the voice, and I thought it was strange that he kept offering things such as power, which felt too cartoonish for me.”

“Mm. Smart. Don’t listen to the gods,” Mina nods sagely. “If people offer you power, hell yeah go for it, but I wouldn’t accept anything from the gods. The gods are honourable-” Bakugou snorts, “no, they are. Technically.” She frowns. “They’re honourable in the sense that they maintain a system of reciprocity. Zeus may be the king over gods, but to stay in power, he still has to deal with politics. Besides, they’re all too prideful to go against the honour code.” She takes a bite of a Clementine slice. Then shrugs. “Or bro code, I guess.”

“If they’re so honourable about reciprocity, why don’t we get shit out of what we’re doing?” Bakugou snarls.

“Because,” she answers casually, “the gods play favourites amongst mortals, but those were of heroes of the past. Now, in modern day, they typically don't care much about mortals.”

“They usually only maintain reciprocity with people of the same status,” Yaoyorozu adds.

“Hey, Midoriya,” Todoroki wires the conversation back on track. “Don’t accept power in general, it’s never worth it,” he advises wisely. “There’s always a catch.”

“Baku,” Bakugou glances in acknowledgement towards Mina. “Would you have said yes? Like. Towards the Pit man’s offer?”

He blinks.

“Mina!” Kirishima gasps, “you can’t just _ ask _that!”

“What?” She scoffs. “It’s not like we don’t know he doesn’t care for the gods, and we’re in a no-judgment zone! C’mon, just curious. Also, I’m just passing along a question. Juniper was curious,” she holds her hands up in a sign of innocence, _ “I _ wasn’t going to ask that.”

“Bruh, you can’t place people in difficult situations, like that!” Kirishima gasps. “Or. Juniper, you can’t place people in difficult situations, like that,” he sputters. 

“It’s only difficult if they find it difficult.” Mina pouts.

“I would’ve said no,” Bakugou replies shortly, ignoring the ruckus. 

“Well, yeah, I mean. Colluding with Hades is too risky,” Yaoyorozu nods agreeably. “Working against the other gods never benefit people in the end.”

“I mean. I don’t care about that. I just don’t trust such a sketchy-ass deal,” Bakugou mutters. “I don’t want to save my ma through someone’s terms, especially if I don’t think it’ll work out in my end.” He pauses. “Though, I don’t care if the gods fall. If I felt like they could keep their end of the deal, they can fall into chaos for all I fuckin’ care.”

Yaoyorozu stares, stricken. “Well, I mean. Each to their own, I suppose.” And for a mama’s simp, she’s pretty respectful of his decision. Or maybe she’s too tired to try and convince him otherwise.

He suspects the latter.

“I mean. I would try and save Olympus.” Todoroki frowns. “Such a big change feels too risky to just let happen.”

“I mean. But if your mom was on the line-” Kirishima begins, “I mean. Hypothetically, of course. Like. If you have a mortal mom. Just think about Baku’s situ-”

“I’m not judging Bakugou at all, we all have our own resolutions. But personally, I’d let my mom rot.” Todorki replies flatly.

They stare.

Then: “to each their own,” Yaoyorozu repeats insouciantly.

Bakugou shrugs. If it was Satoshi, he’d purposefully choose any ending that’d result in his worst outcome, consequences be damned.

However, Deku appears rather disconcerted by this, judging by how he’s staring at Todoroki, as if he’s not sure what to make of him.

Fair enough. Deku was always a momma’s boy. Midoriya isn’t insensitive, but he’s definitely inexperienced when it comes to dysfunctional parental relationships, and his extremely good one would conjure a bias in his mind. Sure, _ now _ he has a father who’s asking favours from him after abandoning him and is therefore waking up some dormant daddy issues within him, but just last week, Bakugou knows for a fact that Midoriya had no problems in that field. Ever since he was young, Midoriya’s strongest relationship laid with his mom, and he never was really bothered by the absence of a dad- neither of them were. And after they grew up, his mom would tell him about Deku, even though he never _ asked _, but the most recent update was just about how Inko-san and fucking Deku met this stray cat at the apartment parking lot. 

“Yeah, but like, she’s your _ mom _ , even if you don’t like her- which I’m not judging- wouldn't you want to save her? Or feel at least anything? _ ” _ Deku begins, tone pitched, and Bakugou wants to fucking punch him, not because he’s irritated, but because he’s literally getting second-hand embarrassment by Deku’s goddamn inability to read between the lines. “Like. She’s your mom,” he echoes lamely, flushing red, as if he himself knows how _ DUMB _he sounds. 

“Exactly why I’d let her rot.” Todoroki replies calmly, seemingly unbothered by Midoriya’s unease.

Yaoyorozu doesn’t say anything. If anything, she seems the least deterred past Mina, who’s probably seen it all including mommy issues, and is happily eating a bag of chips. 

Well, Bakugou’s suspected the two of them had a past together. She might even know a bit of Todoroki’s family matters.

Kirishima looks guilty, probably for bringing up such a topic, unaware that it’d result on stepping on a landmine.

Though, Bakugou has a feeling it’s more of a landmine for all of them, instead of for Todoroki, who doesn’t seem to particularly care about dropping this heavy topic on them.

Actually, he doesn’t even _ seem _ aware that he just one-shot them. 

Or maybe he’s just emotionally constipated and is vibing along their wavelength of ‘what the fuck did I just say,’ but is chronically unable to express it because his face looks like it was ironed with a dumbbell chucked into the fire pit. 

“Do you mean it?” Midoriya inquires, and Bakugou’s going to throw hands. 

“I would,” Yaoyorozu suddenly and unexpected intervenes. “I mean. I don’t know if I’d say ‘rot’, but I wouldn’t let Olympus fall for my dad.” She says lightly, face contorting, as if she’s conflicted by her own decision. 

Bakugou doesn’t doubt she wouldn’t pick Olympus over her dad at any time, though. Not just because of her obvious bias towards Olympus, but also because she doesn’t feel like the type to make any type of decision without unshaking sincerity. 

“To each their own,” Bakugou echoes her words. “Respect.” He looks over at the sound of rustling.

Todoroki meets his gaze with his own blank one. “Thank you,” he replies seriously.

Bakugou flips him off.

* * *

“You know,” Kirishima says amiably as he shakes the packed peanuts that they dug out of their backpack. He shakes the ripped packet once more, to get out the last chili peppers and dust. “This is fun.”

“I’m dying I think I can feel all my brain cells increase in entropy the more they bounce off the inside walls of my hollow cranium, unable to escape out of their confines,” Todoroki says.

“I get carsick easily, but at least I won’t get sick of you guys,” Deku informs cheerfully. 

“Yeah, this is pretty fun.” Mina agrees.

“Mm.” Kirishima nods, crumpling up his waste. “It almost makes my peanut allergy worth it.”

“Oh geez. Anaphylactic shock,” Bakugou snorts, beginning to uncap his water, when he freezes, processing Kirishima’s statement.

He drops his water bottle, as Mina stares, smile plastered on her face.

“What the fuck,” Bakugou says tonelessly.

“Yeah,” Kirishima sighs (wheezes). “I can feel my throat close up.”

_ “Oh my god.” _

_ “Kirishima _what-”

_ “whERE'S THE AMBROSIA-" _

* * *

“Finally, we can get off!” Mina laughs, voice hysterical and mind gone.

Bakugou steps off, and like a horse who makes eye contact with a human for the first time in their life, his knees stop working.

To the side as he eats concrete, he hears Deku puke against the bus stop sign.

Distantly, he hears Yaoyorozu’s voice: “you know, we’re going to get arrested for public disturbance. Kirishima, put back on your shirt.”

* * *

“You know, I don’t know why people keep giving me odd looks. What the fuck did I ever do to them?” Bakugou snaps. He’s pretty sure his sword is tucked away in his backpack in the _ most _ uncomfortable fashion ever (it’s not like he can carry a hip sheathe out in public daylight. Then again, it _ is _ America- it’ll just probably show up as an illusioned gun, and no one would bat an eye). 

Looking him directly in the eye, a bold move for a wimp who vomited up watery stomach acid in a public area, which had triggered another girl nearby to do the same thing just at the sight of him doing so, Midoriya uncrumples a piece of paper. “Is this you?” He says dryly, tapping it.

Bakugou blinks, and tears the paper out of his hand. Attempting to smooth out the wrinkles, he catches his name in bold.

“Holy shit, you’re famous!” Kirishima peers over his shoulder.

“Is that a _ wanted poster?” _ Yaoyorozu’s voice clips from shock.

“Oh shit, you have a _ wanted poster? _ That’s so _ wicked,” _ Mina gasps, and Bakugou seriously questions if she’s an age old ancient civilization spawn.

“Oh my god,” Bakugou squints. “This isn’t a wanted poster,” he snorts, crushing it into a ball, playing off his anger in a form of indifference because _ what the fuck _ . “This is an Instagram spam account’s vent post. Satoshi, I expected better from you,” and he barely read it, really _ couldn’t _ once he got to the line that accused him of kidnapping his mom, but it’s been updated since the first poster he saw of himself.

Because it said he was seen in America. 

And the picture- it was the picture of him with a feral gaze in his eye, swinging something heavy over his shoulder, too blurry to pick up. 

He knows exactly where that photo’s from.

_ Fuck. Hawaiian shirt dude from the blown up bus. _He knew it. He should’ve smashed his camera and then his skull. 

Bakugou, not for the first time, feels angry that his sword can’t harm mortals.

Assholes should at least be an exception to this shitty rule. 

He sighs. “Fuck. I stand out, don’t I?”

“In terms of attitude or appearance? Because both do factor in,” Mina chirrups.

“Yeah, bro, you’re pretty. Loud. In both ways.”

“I think Mina, you having pink hair and Bakugou having reddish eyes definitely do more than his shouting. Kirishima, you have _ fire-hydrant red hair. _” Midoriya reasons. At least the temperamental rain from earlier has flattened Kirishima’s obnoxiously red hair to the point where he just tied it in a low ponytail. 

“You have _ green _ hair,” Yaoyorozu tempers down his accusations.

“Oscar the Grouch core,” Kirishima nods wisely.

“I.” Bakugou stares at all of them. _ “Hello?” _ He gestures wildly at Todoroki dressed like an uncomfortable scene child with e-boy hair, who just stares at them blankly.

“Oh, right, my attitude is pretty distinct,” Todoroki nods.

Bakugou’s going to Nerf him dead.

“Yeah, your stupidity is pretty dumbfounding,” Bakugou snarls, “but your fucking _ hair _ , we have _ hats, _don’t we?”

* * *

“I feel stupid.”

“It’s because you are,” Bakugou says tonelessly, though, he does glance evilly over at Todoroki, who appears rather glum for wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

“I think that’s drawing more attention than his hair,” Yaoyorozu hums.

“He should honestly just wear the Pikachu hat,” Kirishima advises. 

“Yeah, but then we’d lose him. The only distinct trait of this man is only his appearance, since we all know it’s not his personality,” Bakugou yawns.

“You know. If Todoroki was just a bit shorter, he could’ve literally wore anything else except for the striped shirts we took,” Yaoyorozu notes.

Bakugou shrugs. “I think him looking like an eboy truly reflects how he is on the inside.”

“What’s an eboy?” Yaoyorozu inquires curiously.

“Expressed daddy issues.” Bakugou interprets. 

Todoroki crinkles his nose. “Stop psychoanalysing me. Who said you could?”

“It’s not psychoanalysing when your suffering is blatant on your face,” Bakugou says flatly. Then, before he can reply, he reaches up and dunks the large cowboy brim over his vision. “Yee-haw,” he cackles as Todoroki stumbles forward by his weight. 

“Why did you dye your hair such a vibrant colour? Not like it looks bad, it’s_ really _ cool! And _ bold! _” Kirishima says.

“I didn’t.” Todoroki grunts in response, attempting to knock back his hat so he can actually see where he’s walking. 

Bakugou stops in his tracks. “You’re telling me that hair is _ natural?” _ And sure, Midoriya has fucking green hair, is out here moving water, and Mina has an entire ecosystem on her scalp, but _ still _.

Todoroki looks him dead in the eyes. “Mostly. But now the white portion of my hair is larger, because stress has permanently bleached a section of my head.”

And Bakugou doesn’t want to leave him on-read irl, but he genuinely doesn’t know how to respond to that. 

“Oh. That sucks,” Kirishima finally says when no one else replies. 

“We walked past lots of people with two-toned hair. Didn’t walk into a single one with a yeehaw brim.” Midoriya observes loudly. “Some even had green hair,” and yeah, Bakugou was surprised. Not like Japanese street fashion didn’t include wild hair colours or fashions that stood out _ way _ more than the people they’re walking by, but to see those types of people, you’d have to be in a specific area to catch sight of them. But here, just in broad daylight, there appears to be typical citizens with rather tame fashion styles, paired _ with _strange coloured hair. He guesses America normalizes strangely dyed hair, then. 

Todoroki shrugs. “I’ll keep the hat. The thing is, my dad is still pretty well-known in these parts, and so am I. Back then, I was expected to be his company’s heir, before I left for camp. It’s probably better to hide my face. It’s...pretty recognizable.” It is. Most people don’t have such a clean scar on their face. At least the hat draws attention away from it.

It’s very hard to not focus on the large pancake looking-ass cowboy hat with the little rope underneath the chin.

Looks like a stingray. 

Bakugou, because he’s a kind-ass person, quickly picks up the conversation so it doesn’t fade into an awkward silence. “Yeah. Whatever. Kirishima’s wearing a hat, too.”

“A ball cap,” Kirishima gestures. “I’m not cosplaying as Sheriff Woody.”

“Whatever, I mean, no one’s looking anymore, at least,” Bakugou sighs, readjusting the sunglasses he decided to wear. While he figures people won’t bother looking at him close enough to notice his red eyes, he doesn’t _ know _. Last thing he needs is people recognizing him from the wanted posters’ description.

“Is this the place?” Midoriya nods at the bridge.

“Yep!” Yaoyorozu smiles brightly. “I asked around- this is the Gateway Arch!”

“Cool. Gateway to where?” Kirishima hums.

Yaoyorozu smiles. “This is the Gateway Arch!” She repeats, unwavering. “It’s the world’s tallest arch, as well as the tallest man-made thing in the Western hemisphere, _ the western hemisphere! _ It symbolises the Gateway to the West. Doesn’t it really feel like we’re going in the right direction.” She chirps, waving her hands high above her head, and Bakugou pauses, tilting his head.

He didn’t know she could visibly express her excitement.

Cute. His mom would do the same thing, too. 

Except, despite doing the exact same movements, Ponytail is _ still _ somehow ten times less annoying than his ma when she does it. 

Bakugou cranes his neck, staring at the arch, the smoky clouds dispersing around its peak in an ominous fashion. 

It’s like the halo fallen off an angel’s head, and cracked down deep into the earth, with half of its body burrowed into its core. 

"Eldritch relic," Kirishima blinks.

It’s horrifying,” Midoriya whispers.

“It’s an arch,” Todoroki notes bluntly. 

“You’re not wrong,” Bakugou mutters in response to all of their statements, clenching his backpack straps. He eyeballs the dizzying peak. It’s so high up, it feels like a mirage.

He takes a step back.

He’s not specifically afraid of heights, but seeing the crashing water run below the arch, so far below from its peak that he just knows his body will scatter like the beads of a broken necklace if he just hits the _ surface _ of the water, makes him skirt onto the other side of Mina as if to place more distance between him and the river. 

Are river currents usually that strong?

Maybe. He doesn’t know. 

“You know. We don’t have to go up there,” Yaoyorozu suddenly says, sidling in front of their entire group. “Wasting time is definitely more consequential on your end, and this only benefits me. And this is only for fun. We’re already here, and just seeing it makes my day,” Yaoyorozu smiles brightly, and she doesn’t sound like she’s lying. “Honestly, I never thought I’d even be this close to such an architectural masterpiece. We can head back now, I’m definitely satisfied just by this.”

And Bakugou muses over her offer. Because do they have _ time _ to waste on going up there _ ? _ The world is ending, Bakugou’s ma is frozen, everything sucks, and now they’re _ sight-seeing? _ Bakugou thinks it’s rather spiteful to the problem bigger than them, bigger than mortals, bigger then perhaps immortals.

He loves it.

“Fuck yeah, we’re already here. Why not? Besides, sure, every second counts, but if the world ends anyways, might as well make some fun memories.” Bakugou yawns. Fun memories as in fuck the gods.

Yaoyorozu looks at him, something indescribable scrawled on her expression. “You really don’t have to,” she says warily.

“Deku, this is ultimately your mission. What the fuck do you want?” He barks.

Midoriya’s staring at the arch, eyes unnervingly fixated at the vertex of it. “I mean. I certainly don’t mind. But Kacchan, _ you’re _ fine with this?” He continues, tone being one of shock.

“What? I mean. Why the fuck not? When will we ever get to have a chance of going on a downsized McDonald’s arch for fun?” Bakugou snaps.

“Cool! Heights!” Kirishima whoops.

“I don’t like it here,” Mina adds with uncharacteristic glumness, but she trails along behind them. “Smells like my kind.”

“I mean. With you here, you think you can create temporary peace between us and monsters?” Todoroki inquires hopefully.

She blinks. “When I say my kind, I mean. _ My _ kind. Like. Serpentine. Anyways. I can’t create peace between any monster and myself. Sure, I’m a powerful monster because I’m an actual distinctive figure in history and not just a species, but they won’t listen to me when it comes to going against their instinctive and personal prejudice,” she shakes her head. “Like. _ I _ would never. Even if someone like, I don’t know, Sphinx or Tantalus told me to shove it, I wouldn’t just _ listen _.”

Yaoyorozu peers back at that. “Isn’t Tantalus a mortal? He didn’t turn into a monster.”

Mina shrugs. “He’s not a monster, he’s worse.”

Bakugou glances at the stormy skies and raging river.

He doesn’t like it here.

“What is he?” He hears Deku’s voice from behind.

“An asshole,” Mina replies distantly.

“We’re taking that?” Bakugou points at the small elevator cars taking passengers onto another arch. “That thing?” 

Yaoyorozu beams. “Yep.”

“Oh my god.” Deku whispers. “I don’t want to go on that.”

“Pussy,” Bakugou reflexively spits, though, he doesn’t find himself moving towards that thing either.

It looks tiny.

Small.

They have six people.

All of them are hormonally angry children with questionable self-restraint.

He has a visual image of the entire elevator collapsing and flying towards the floor like a weight.

“It’s going _ so _ slow,” Todoroki suddenly observes aloud, and Bakugou didn’t even notice that. “And. The arch is _ tall _.”

“Guys, we really don’t have to go on,” Yaoyorozu says firmly, sounding less guilty, more instructive. “I’m being serious, it won’t be fun if we don’t all enjoy it, after all,” and her conviction wavers, and _ ah _, there’s the guilt.

Well, smart of her to realise by this point that sounding guilty won’t do any convincing. They’re the type of people to follow reason rather than emotions like her or Deku.

“Oh _ what _, it’s even taller up close,” Kirishima laughs, clutching onto his hat as he bows his head all the way up. 

“Holy shit, how _ long _ do we have to wait in a cramped ass fucking space, in the fucking _ air?” _ Bakugou summarizes all of their concerns in a single explicit statement.

“I’m. I don’t like bridges already. I don’t like being on the ground. I don’t like being over the river,” Mina adds, disgruntled.

“The river is fine. Not the height.” Deku cringes.

“Yeah. Both statements are fitting, for the son of Poseidon and current enemy of Zeus,” Mina states dryly. “Now, think about what I just said. Isn’t it equally fitting, given Poseidon directly hates my guts?” She twitches. “God, Tobius and Menelaus are giving me _ shit _ for even considering this.”

“Guys.” Yaoyorozu suddenly says, turning to them, giving them a convincing smile. “I don’t want to go on anymore, it’s not worth it-”

“Shut up,” Bakugou scowls, threateningly knocking the back of her knee with a foot. “We already made our decision. Don’t be the one to back out of it.” He threatens, and she looks at him, before laughing with a stuttered nod, and this time, her smile feels real. 

Bakugou sighs. 

“This is going great,” Todoroki mutters. “We might get split up.” He turns to them. “Anyone wants to get on first?”

* * *

The lady is staring at them.

Bakugou stares back.

He then looks down, and at the fucking chihuahua who’s currently attempting to gnaw off her thick ankle.

He glances back up, to find her freakishly fixated at them.

To be fair, they are four children, huddled and distributing _ all _ their weight into one corner, with her just on the other side with a fucking negative-eight kilogram mutt.

Yaoyorozu is currently chasing off excitement by pacing in their small car, eyes wandering out its windows while doing so.

Bakugou hates this. Whatever. At least goddamn moldy hot sauce is in the other car. The security guard had cut them off, claiming the car was full by their fourth person, and they were ushered on before they had a say.

Meaning Mina and Todoroki are waiting for their car to come back down, given that out of the six of them, it’s really both of the Athena kids that want to take a look. Or maybe just Yaoyorozu. Who knows what Todoroki’s thinking.

Who knows if he even thinks.

Honestly, the more Bakugou dwells on it (the more they’re stuck on this fucking ride), the more he realizes they could've saved money and time if a few of them stayed down there. But for some reason, Midoriya seemed adamant on coming up, and Bakugou isn’t going to be the only one who doesn’t get on the fucking ride when even the wimp is taking the elevator up, so fuck that. 

He sighs. But he could’ve at least gotten better company. He wants to be in a car with only Medusa, who’s at least remotely chill.

No, instead, he’s with goddamn Deku.

The only other passenger in the car with them blinks, eyes slanting alongside with the curves of her lips, and she gives an open-closed wave with one bejeweled hand as well. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” the lady says to none of them in particular. 

Bakugou glowers.

Kirishima blinks, giving such a friendly smile that almost makes Bakugou himself forget that there’s absolutely no neurotic activity going on behind his empty eyes. 

“Yep!” Yaoyorozu responds without hesitation, beaming as he peels her hands away from the window. “Just touring about.”

Bakugou stares barely at the dog, and his eyes just trail up the owner, only to freeze.

The lady smiles, her dry lipstick crackling around coffee-stained teeth, eyes unblinking and latched onto them. Her dog is running circles around her blotty legs, its leash tangling around her limbs. 

“Patience, sonny.” She murmurs. 

The chihuahua growls.

Bakugou growls back.

The dog snarls, legs trembling by the anger shaking its eyeballs.

Chihuahuas are inherently evil.

“I love dogs. Dogs are so cute!” Kirishima coos, walking up next to Yaoyorozu who has stopped in front of the lady out of courtesy.

Bakugou’s rather unnerved that this is not the first time he glances at Midoriya and finds the other _ also _ sliding his gaze over in almost an understanding ‘what the hell’ look, even though Midoriya can’t even _ understand _what she’s saying. 

“His name?” The lady suddenly laughs loudly, interrupting his and Deku’s _ really _ strange moment of soul crossing that makes Bakugou feel like he just raised his taboo levels. It takes him a hot second to realise she’s addressing Yaoyorozu, who looks like she _ really _ doesn’t want to pet the dog, but is crouching down at his clawed paws with a smile that looks like she’s held at gunpoint. “Well, I just call him ‘Sonny’,” she smiles. 

Fucking Sonny is trying to snap off Yaoyorozu’s finger like a carrot. “Sonny, wait. You can have your lunch soon- we don’t want to make a mess in a car.”

“Sonny?” Kirishima echoes. “Oh, like Sony. The company?”

“Oh,” Yaoyorozu chuckles lightly, and turns to the lady. “My friend thought you meant the company.”

“Sonny, like a name,” Bakugou corrects impatiently, wondering _ when _ they’ll fucking _ reach the top _.

“And my other friend explained it’s just a name,” Yaoyorozu translates. 

The car chugs slowly.

“No, not a name,” the owner suddenly states, and Bakugou reflexively scowls, startled she even paid attention to him.

She fails to elaborate, and Bakugou doesn't follow it up with a question.

“Sonny can be a nickname, it’s not uncommon in America,” Yaoyorozu informs him.

“Whatever.” 

Bakugou glances about, fingers twitching, and he makes a mistake of looking outside.

Shit.

He quickly retracts his gaze, as well as his soul back into his body. 

He looks over, and Deku doesn't look any better.

If anything, he looks way worse, the iris of his eyes pale and bouncing, darting across the thundery skies and foggy horizon.

Shit. Shit. 

Bakugou doesn’t like this.

Doesn’t _ like _ vehicles.

Doesn’t like stormy days and vehicles combined. 

Last time he was served this order, his mom fucking disappeared. 

“We’re almost up. Maybe ten more minutes?” Midoriya breathes, and Bakugou blinks, stunned out of his darkening thoughts. But Midoriya isn’t trying to reassure him. Rather, he’s clutching his elbows, back to everyone else in the cart, eyes clenched shut.

Fair enough. 

Bakugou wheels back around, wondering if anyone else is perturbed by their setting.

“He’s. Sonny’s very cute,” Yaoyorozu compliments, crouched near the dog, looking like she’s held hostage as she beams upwards at the lady right next to the dog.

“He looks like a rat.” Bakugou comments.

“Has your father not taught you manners?” The lady retorts, for once, her smile collapsing. 

The dog (monster? What the fuck else is that?) snaps its jaw with a violent shudder that ripples through its hollow body, and like frothy toothpaste, suds drip out between its terrifyingly black canines.

Its eyes, like of a goldfish, are bulbous and revolving in its sockets, unfocused and vibrating.

“I hate it.” He says, this time in Japanese.

“Couldn’t you have said the first statement in Japanese, too?” Yaoyorozu speaks between her grinning teeth, clearly berating Bakugou in her mind. 

“I think he’s sweet,” Kirishima pouts, and the dog attempts to eat his knuckle cartilage. Bakugou’s starting to believe that small dogs just don’t like Kirishima, and instead see him as a threateningly bigger version of themselves. 

“He’s very cute,” Yaoyorozu addresses in English, “ignore my friend.”

“Who’re you calling friend?” Bakugou chews out his next words.

“Oh? All friends? No parents?” The lady questions lightly, tugging _ hard _ on the leash, jerking Sonny back, who tumbles violently, its bark stunted with a tight yelp, and Bakugou feels temporary pity for it. Yaoyorozu’s also staring in obvious shock, and she doesn’t even look grateful that the lady just saved her big thumb from being crunched like celery. “Sonny! I said wait!” She snaps, her previous drawling, molasses voice _ gone _, replaced with a sharp whipcrack tone that sets even Bakugou on edge. “You can eat once we’re out of this tiny car.”

They need to _ go _.

Midoriya’s one shortened breath away from a panic attack, Yaoyorozu is literally right next to a weaponized spawn of Mother Nature, and Kirishima’s- well he’s just being _ Kirishima _.

“Nope, we’re on a field trip,” Yaoyorozu responds fluidly. She turns to him. “Right?”

“Mm.” 

Then, in Japanese, she mutters, “clearly our kind’s future generation looks dark.”

And he didn’t know Ponytail had it in her.

Not like he didn’t feel an urge to drop her like a stable horse the moment she said that.

“Right, we’re all transfer students,” he adds in his perfect English to get her off his back.

“Hm. Is that so?” 

She smiles, tongue flickering in pleasure.

Bakugou stares a bit longer. 

Huh.

“Huh, Sonny, you know,” Kirishima frowns from where he’s leaning next to the snappy chihuahua because he fears no god and has no sense of self-preservation, “I can read his tag it’s. Wait. It’s in Gree-” Kirishima’s eyes widen, but the stuttering halt of their cart rattles the rest of his sentence. 

“Oh.” The auntie blinks, eyelids heavy against her glowing eyes. “Finally. And I was ready to just throw it all in out of impatience.”

Bakugou’s mental alarm_ rings _ , rings so hard, his vertigo spirals, and he stumbles forward with graceless speed, and without a second thought, _ yanks _ Yaoyorozu back, who nearly collapses out of her squat.

She yelps, but before she can either jump onto her feet or deck him in the face, the chihuahua is snapping the air where she was just milliseconds ago.

“Here I thought I had to wait forever. Sonny, I said patience yields rewards.”

“What the _ fuck _ .” Bakugou stares, eyes focused so intensely because _ what the fuck _wha-

The chihuahua is now the size of a doberman, but _ evolving. _Chihuahuas really are the unprecedented horrors of modern society. 

At the end of that thought, the dog is already crouching in the cart, head knocking against the roof. 

Dog.

He keeps calling it a dog.

The fact that its head is clearly of a large cat, a fucking _ lion _ , already defines it as _ not _ a canine, and Bakugou’s not even paying attention to the fact that its tail is enlongating and _ scaly. _

_ Mermaid lion _, Bakugou thinks faintly. 

_ Ding. _

Bakugou stares as the door slides open.

A family stares back, but at the giant elephant (dog? Lion? _ Chimera. _) in the room.

“Clifford?” Squeaks a small boy standing right in front of a mother. 

Now, the auntie’s eyes are yellow.

They’re fucking piss pus yellow, like they’re halved petri dishes of bacteria culture. 

They’re yellow like Mina’s, except rather than black in the background, the whites of her eyes are glossy and bulbous, her narrow pupils sliding across those milky seas. “Yeah. He’s a good boy like Clifford.” The lady smiles. “Wanna pet?”

  
  


Then, the Chimera’s fucking head _breaks_ through the car roof.

* * *

See, Midoriya likes Kirishima.

Kirishima has a background in the mortal world. The fact that it’s not a very strong background perfectly parallels Midoriya’s, therefore, they’re able to bond over the fact that they both think Sailor Moon was a pretty hype kids show.

Then the car clicked to a halt, and all at once, he realises Yaoyorozu is an impromptu rubber chew toy, Kirishima’s shouting, Bakugou’s jerking him out of the car and pushing aside other people, and now the dog is wearing the tram car like a Christmas sweater.

_ “-OP MUTTERING YOU USELESS TWAT-” _ Midoriya violently shakes back to reality, only to realise it wasn’t a sudden epiphany that's causing his body to rattle, rather, it’s _ oh _, because that the entire arch is halfway from concaving like someone’s rib cage.

Midoriya blinks.

Then: _ “oh my god holy heck what the heck _ KACCHAN _ -” _

“I’M FUCKING FINE, BUT YOU WON’T BE IF YOU DON’T WALK ON YOUR FUCKING OWN-”

Midoriya’s knees buckle, but he stumbles back up, realising numbly that he’s no longer in the car.

Actually, the car isn’t even there.

He blinks.

The dog is also not even here.

Instead, there’s a lion with half of a car digging into its bony pelt (pelt? Doesn’t even look like one- the body looks nothing like the lion’s pelt he’s seen on Go Deigo Go) like a shredded Pepsi Cola can.

“Uh.” He says smartly.

“Even the kid sounds less dumb than you,” Bakugou sneers from beside him, face greasy and dusty, gesturing towards a small child beside them who’s screaming higher than a soprano, the family gathered behind him harmonizing like a choir.

At least there doesn’t seem to be anyone else here.

Then again, a whole family is not the best, either. 

“What _ is _ that?” Midoriya inhales sharply, and as if answering his question, the creature bows down, ropes of drool looping around its canines that are larger than twice the width of Midoriya’s waist, exposing its diamond collar that somehow expanded with him.

There, a rusty and chipped nametag, has the words ‘CHIMERA’ engraved in all capitals, and underneath: ‘RABID, EATS STRANGERS, POISONOUS, FIREBREATHING- IF LOST, RETURN TO TARTARUS, EXT 954.’

_ That's not Japanese. _

It’s not even English.

Ancient Greek.

_ “Midoriya Izuku.” _

“Popular man, aren’tcha?” Kirishima chirrups cheerfully, as if the booming voice doesn’t belong to an overwhelmingly tall lady whose body is supported on four tails, all scaly and thicker than an asunaro tree, towering over them with her full body.

He can only tell it was the lady from the tram due to her cutting smile (_ fangs. _ Fangs. Yellow fangs _ oh my god Izuku what are you _ doing _ I want to go _home-) and intricate jewels glistening on her fingers.

And through his screaming panic, a sudden sense of calm sledgehammers into him through the third-party observation: ‘wow. what the hell am i doing here. this is literally not worth it’.

Then the panic seeps back into his bones the moment the creature roars, its drool swinging by the exhale of its breath.

“Be proud you’ll be taken by one of my kin, exclusively by me, Mother of Monsters!” The auntie smiles sweetly.

“Oh.” Midoriya blinks, taking a moment to reboot his brain. “Thank you.”

“Shut the fuck up Deku,” he hears Bakugou’s voice in the distant, and he straight up drowns it out.

“I, Echidna, am also the offspring of the sea. You, son of Poseidon, _ are nothing against me. _”

Midoriya can’t even hear anything past the screaming tourists and Bakugou’s explicitized shouts that he reflexively cranked into white noise, which works well as an ironic censorship for his foul mouth.

However, he’s still somehow able to hear his own thoughts over all that. Echidna? “Isn’t that an armadillo?” He blurts without processed forethought, recalling his list of randomized facts that he picked up from scrolling through Buzzfeed articles_ . _

The lady stares.

Then roars.

_ “Fuck Australia! _Naming things however they want!” She howls. 

Rather strange, given her snakily attributes.

“Australia? Suitable, given that she’s the mother of monsters and Australia might be the homeland of them,” Bakugou mutters dryly.

And she must’ve heard him despite his voice being swept up by the screams of the family behind them, as she turns an eye as yellow as stomach bile onto him. “You’re _ dead _.”

Midoriya can’t believe they’re going to get K.O’d because of freaking Australia.

* * *

“Do you see that?” Todoroki asks.

Medusa glances up from where she was having a heated debate with Tobias, who keeps claiming he senses another snake, as if he isn't in a_ head full of snakes. _

“Huh?” She looks up, oblivious to the looks from Todoroki who witnessed her hold a thirty minute conversation with herself in low-rendition English-ified Parseltongue.

To her, it doesn’t matter.

There aren’t any other passengers with them, as they thought would’ve happened after they waited for this car to come down for their turn.

Irritating, given that it meant they could’ve just all waited for this one car, rather than splitting up.

Todoroki points out the window. 

She looks out.

“Ah.”

He stares.

“There's a hole on the floor of the Gateway Arch.” She comments rather casually. 

“You know. Our friends are up there by now.” Todoroki adds.

She stares.

“Yeah. Thank Chronos that we didn’t get on the first cart.”

_ “See, I told you!!!!!!” _

And the amount of exclamating pitches that Maria uses in every sentence is giving Medusa a headache. “Ugh. My snakes are _ really _ upset. Bitching about another bitch.”

_ “Tailsssss. I can hear four tails. _ She’s one of us.” Tobias gripes, edging past the eight other snakes who are also trying to whisper into her right ear. _ “Medusa, I _ kno _ w it’s one of us! I’m not joking! There’s someone up there. One of us. _”

“Tobias. You’re surrounded by literally all your siblings right now.”

_ “No! I can hear her!” _ And Medusa’s eyebrow jerks harshly as she hears at least two-hundred other vibrating hisses of agreement. As if they aren’t in their own mosh pit of serpents.

_ “Oh geez. This is just like when we ran into Danh.” _Juniper rasps out a laugh.

Medusa scowls. Danh. Not a monster, but certainly _ something _ from Ancient Egyptian culture who one day walked into her diner. At least she’s not located near East Asia where snakes are typically just straight up dragons, or the West of Asia, where too many op Hindu deities are somehow connected to snakes as well.

She doesn’t like encountering people of her kind, within Ancient Greek religion or outside of it. 

Snakes are wired to be independent and competitive, after all. 

Then- _ “it’s her. _ Mom.” Melon bristles. 

“Oh what the _ hell!” _ Medusa gasps at that memo, ignoring how Todoroki jolts at her sudden shout. And she didn’t notice at first- _ how could she? _

“Right.” Todoroki states tonelessly, staring at her.

The Mother of Monster has more control over the Mist than someone like Medusa herself would- she would've noticed Medusa before Medusa would’ve noticed her. 

Echidna.

Medusa’s whites are swallowed black, amber pupils becoming slits in the inksacks of her eyes, sharper than her current smile. 

Holy shit, _Echidna. _

_ “Take off your glasses! Medusa, c’mon!” _ Marrow, always the adrenaline junkie, gripes. 

_ “Yeah! C’mon. Sure your powers are a curse, _ but don’t deny it. You love it.” Tobias, snake in terms of personality and species, licks against her lobe. 

She snorts.

A paralysed Mother of Monsters. Well. It’s not like she _ can’t _ turn her own kind into stone. 

_ “Don’t. Don’t test it, _ you can’t win _ ,” _ Demos, the speaker of all the rational snakes in her head (therefore like, two snakes in total), speak testily from the back of her neck. _ “You have to go. Leave. Last time you tried to take on a more powerful opponent, you ended up like this, remember. _Don't be overconfident, little girl."

She can feel the slick back of her eyes burn, anticipation searing her sockets. 

“It’s _ her! It’s her it’s her!” _ And Melon is losing it, squirming against her scalp and getting tangled with her brothers, excitement twitching her muscles.

And Medusa, she noticed the moment she stepped near the arch, that smelt something _ off _ . Like wet cat smell. She didn’t know that it was going to be _ them _, though.

Medusa has never encountered this creature, but she can recognize the smell of her kin, especially one as distinct and as ancient amongst the old generation as this one.

Echidna. She’s had multiple dogs before, but a partial cat? _ Chimera. _Has to be the Chimera, for such a strong and disgustingly perversive scent of a drowned feline. 

“Who?” Todoroki blinks, staring at her breakdown. 

She scopes in, and quickly shoves closer to Todoroki. “Tsk. The _ other _ Archean beautiful madame who’s part snake. Never met her in person- we were from different times, but how can I _ not _ know of her, being compared to her as a downgraded version when _ obviously _I have more character!”

Todoroki blinks. Then, his eyes widen slightly in recognition. “Oh. Echidna?"

“Yeah, that’s the bitch!”

"Oh _crap_," Todoroki mutters, and the only reason why Medusa realizes he's concerned is due to the 1/93th fraction of a volume that his eyebrow twitched downwards, in comparison to his typical default expression. 

_ “Exactly. A bitch. Never liked her anyways-s-s-s,” _ Tobias hisses, and she can feel his dry body curl around the back of her ear. _ “Is that her name? _Is she our cousin?”

_ “S-s-s-tupid.” _ Simpers Juniper. _ “Aren’t all monsters related once you go back far enough?” _

_ “You know, Hesiod that author, in his version of how early Greek formed, it’s your son who gives birth to her. _You could be her grandmother.” Adrian says with evil glee.

Medusa snorts, used to ignoring half of the voices she hears. If they don’t get an answer from her, they’ll just argue it out amongst themselves- they have a whole extended family to never feel lonely, with or without her input. “Nah, Hesiod was too vague,” she wrinkles her nose. “We all know he was talking about Gaia as her daddy,” she scoffs, leaning close to the glass panel. “If _ I _ had a child like her, I’d disown her. Though, it'd make sense how we’re related, given how beauty is within genes,” she hums cheerfully.

“Wow. The myths were right. You are vain,” a sudden voice outside of her headspace cuts in, and Medusa glowers over at the annoying kid, who’s staring at her in disbelief.

She doesn’t know if it’s ironic or terribly pitiful that the boy’s face does not change despite the context of his words.

Mortals need to step off, they’re getting too comfortable. She sniffs. Except for the blonde. He’s his _ own _ breed and definitely not human, not even half, given his personality. “So? Just because I _ know _ I’m hot doesn’t mean I’m vain.”

He doesn’t look entirely convinced, not like Medusa needs the validation of someone else, much less a demigod.

“I thought you were actually _ her _ granddaughter,” Todoroki adds.

Medusa laughs, voice brassy and happy. Ah. Family reunions. “Well, we’re all related one way or another. Some do say my mother was her offspring, some don’t. Either way, all versions technically exist in their own right, and in some ways, I’ve lived through all versions.” 

“I see.” He says, looking he does not see. “We’re so close to the top.” Todoroki sighs, glancing at the windows.

“Why? Want to help them?” Medusa gives a sharp and knowing smile.

He looks at them.

“Opposite, really. Sounds like a lot of work.” He pauses, before breaking out of his slouch, jerking upright. “Shit, Midoriya’s with them.” He turns to Medusa, looking the most emotional she’s ever seen him. “Quick, how fast until we get there?”

She looks at the progress up until the top.

“Hm. Fifteen minutes?”

He stares.

Then sinks to the floor, ignoring the judgmental looks of her three-hundred-and-forty-seven snakes. “Midoriya’s going to _ die. _ And then so will _ I. _ Aizawa’s going to _ kill _ me.” 

* * *

“What _ is _that?” Midoriya gapes, eyes shriveling in their sockets.

Kirishima is already brandishing his large sword, the girth of his blade _ wider _ than his thigh.

Terrifying.

Even more astoundingly disturbing that he can lift it up with ease. Midoriya has _ no _ idea where he even took it out from in the first place. “Chimera.” Kirishima mutters, smile still plastered on his face, though, obvious anxiety creases the wrinkles of his mouth.

Yaoyorozu is _ somehow _ noching an arrow into a _ bow _ that he has _ no _ idea where she retrieved that from, either.

“What the fuck.” Bakugou says flatly, and _ thank _ god that hey, he’s not the only one confused by this very fast-quick turn of events. 

He stares at Bakugou.

Slashes of blood overlaps his crouched frame, and Midoriya remembers Bakugou’s staggering figure hunched over from The Fates’ gouges.

Riptide is in his hand without him even thinking about it. 

Yaoyorozu can’t do anything- she’s too close for someone with such a long-range weapon. Or maybe not, who knows, Midoriya had _ three hours _ of fighting experience, most of that in a controlled environment. 

But the thing is, they’re _ in an arch. _ And it’s pretty big, somehow tall enough for the Chimera, but _ just barely _; the Chimera can only somewhat lift its head without it rapping against the ceiling. 

Well, at least he’s a big and easy target. 

“Hey, Chihuahua!” He shouts over his mental static scattering the screams around him. “CHIHUAHUA!”

The Chimera pounces for him before Midoriya can properly think of his next steps and _ holy crap holy crap _and he thought the big DOG was an issue-

The hellhound was ironically a small mutt in comparison to this chihuahua. 

Rather mindlessly and uselessly, Midoriya thinks that _ why is this a dog _ when it’s clearly a cat of some sort- a lion? Lion head on a gazelle body? Goat? Sheep?

It’d explain its flexibility, how it can leap and somehow maintain a position that prevents it from slamming against the very close walls or ceiling of the monument. 

His thoughts are somewhat anchoring (numbing, desensitizing), that he finds himself reflexively slashing _ Anaklusmos _ deep into the Chimera’s black gums, and he flinches, eyes drying to the point where he feels like his cornea’s flaking and _ oh my gosh- _

It’s like a bonfire. An acidic, radiating bonfire.

The barbecue heat from the inside of the dog’s mouth eats through the air, sears into his skin, and _ oh my gosh my _ flesh _ is going to _melt off-

He’s going to die.

_ I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die- _

He’s back with the hellhound, back with the same repetitive thoughts.

_ Anaklusmos _isn’t coming out. He can’t jump away.

Riptide is wedged deep in between its serrated fangs, and Midoriya can’t he _ can’t _ Riptide is _ stuck and there’s blood but all that blood can’t even loosen his blade he’s _stuck-

A sharp jerk on his shoulder causes him to stumble back, and with that momentum, _ Anaklusmos _ pries free, not without crunching a chunk of meat out from the fleshy root as well. 

Midoriya flinches as blood spews against his fingers.

His heart pounds, kickboxing his rib cage, and for a second, he thought the dog bit into his flesh, ripped him apart, and he’s suddenly underneath the hellhound once more-

“Shit, DEKU-”

Midoriya quickly sidesteps, planting a foot down, and Bakugou finally releases his hand, and they don’t have space to _ run _ because there’s a _ family _ behind them-

There are multiple arrows with broken shafts and embedded heads protruding from one side of the chimera, a couple burrowed into its snout.

He rounds to find the source of them, and freezes.

Yaoyorozu is no longer focusing on the Chimera, rather, she’s dodging all four tails of the not-really-Armadillo, attempting to do some somersault aerobatics over the heavy tails, and Kirishma is trying to stop the Chimera by hacking away at its hind legs.

But the Chimera isn’t even focusing on Kirishima. For sure, it’s stumbling, teetering on its legs (and just _ fall over, please, _ and _ yeah maybe I’m kind of a mean person for thinking that, but you regenerate, _we don’t!). However, it’s still charging at Midoriya, and consequently, Bakugou, who’s behind him, also brandishing his sword now.

Suddenly, a jet of _ fire _ collides with the floor, scorching the floor of the arch.

They fall quiet. Even the screams do, with only the thunderstorm in the distance playing a symphony in the background.

He suddenly remembers the name tag. 

_ Fire breathing. _

He chokes at the snapping and crackling material of the structure.

_ Oh my gosh, we just creme brûléed a national monument _, he thinks faintly.

The fire sears through the carpet, eating through the floor dripping with molten steel and material.

_ How. _ How. This is unfair. This is some _ godly _ cheat code, _ how _ . HOW. How are they going to _ beat _ this thing? 

He takes a step forward rather than push Bakugou back (_ it’s really freaking Midoriya out and he doesn’t even _ know _ how he’s able to still move) _, and ignoring Bakugou’s blurry shouts, he, always an opportunistic, jams Riptide down the moment he sees the Chimera’s head bow low for a charge.

_ Anaklusmos _ sinks into the Chimera’s nasal bones, stopping a couple inches into the tissue.

And he’s not experienced.

He can feel his hands trembling, his legs knocking against each other and feeling heavy with each step and with each rattling breath-

So he lets go the moment he feels the Chimera jerk backwards in pain, and he instantly _ knew _ he lost.

He watches as Riptide remains glued in the animal’s snout, and Midoriya doesn’t even _ know _ how he would get his sword back.

Sure, Riptide will return when possible, but he needs him _ now. _

Before he can wonder _ what the heck did I just do _, the Chimera’s mouth snaps forward, and Midoriya screams out of reflex, body recoiling too late, and he feels something hot and heavy crunch his shoulder.

“DEKU-”

Midoriya’s being used as a chew toy. 

He wants to laugh, his body broiling to a nth degree, burning the air clouding his throat. 

His exhales a chuckle with a mist of blood. 

A glint captures his blurring gaze and it _ hurts it really freaking hurts _ but _ Anaklusmos- _

With his dominant hand, he grabs Riptide’s hilt, the Chimera’s closeness giving him space to his sword, and as the Chimera lets go of him, Midoriya clings onto the hilt for his dear, leaking, _ very faint _ and _ very unlucky _ life, telling himself _ yeah it’s fine if my last good shoulder dislocates _ because I am _ done for either way, shoulder or no shoulder- _

And he goes flying against the floor by gravity, _ Anaklusmos _ in his white grip.

  
  


Then the Chimera’s tail slams towards him.

Midoriya stares as the tail crushes his wrist, and Riptide goes flying.

Flying into the melted hole on the floor. 

Thank God that Midoriya is too busy _ dying _ in pain to actually give a crap right now.

Swaggering onto his feet, numb and woozy and _ bleeding _ and _ I am warm, I am so warm _-

Midoriya recalls what _ else _ was on the nametag.

_ Poisonous. _The Chimera is poisonous.

Midoriya nearly laughs again, but it comes out as a painful wheeze. Whatever, it’s the thought that counts.

Someone's laughing with him, and he bets it’s all the gods at his fate.

“DEKU-”

“Bakugou!” And it’s a female voice. Momo? “Bakugou, _ run _ you can’t fight it head on-”

_ “Fuck off!” _

He's going to die. He subconsciously staggers forward, and nearly falls straight through the hole seared through the hole. 

With aching eyes and through his watery vision, he sees the water swirling below. 

The waves crash below him.

Huh. 

“You know. They really don’t make heroes like they used to. And you’re what? The son of the Big Three?” A snooty voice reaches his ears, and he’d look at where the sound is coming from, but his ears are throbbing and his blood _ hurts _, and his vision’s just composed of smears of oil paint. “Already down. Less than two minutes? And what? There are four of you?”

Midoriya wants to fight.

He wants to fight.

He’s angry.

And he’s angry mostly at _ himself _ for feeling scared, for feeling scared earlier and not taking his chance to give it his all while in decent condition. Instead, now he’s fearful and regretful of everything that led up to this moment.

He’s so-

_ Upset. _

He’s been upset since the gods took Mitsuki-san, a _ random and innocent bystander _ , out of their own emotional outburst. He’s been upset since he talked to Aizawa and Aizawa said this was his destiny and the gods view this as his _ obligation _ that he was born into, a condition he never asked for. He’s _ been _ angry since Aizawa _ validated _ his feelings of how _ unfair _ this is, yet, didn’t do anything.

He’s less emotionally troubled, less sad, and right now, he’s just-

Bitter.

Resentful.

He recognizes this anger. This newfound disdain and _ hate _ and it was _ always _ here since the hellhound, and it resurfaced with the Furies that left Kacchan temporarily disfigured (but he didn’t _ know _ it’d be temporary), and now, his boiling emotions and blood _ whistle _ at this third event. 

He stares at the river below through the thin, crumpling hole of the floor.

The water is swirling with the same emotion draining his energy and care.

It’s a river.

Are rivers meant to be so angry?

_ Zeus. _

Maybe it’s even dad.

Maybe dad is also angry.

It’s not like Midoriya’s offered anything else but spite, anyways. 

“Jump.”

And her voice is clear in contrast to the rest of his smeared senses.

He looks up, vision smeared, and he can barely see her.

His vision is dimming.

“Son of Poseidon, are you not?” 

He can barely hold up his body, with his legs going jiggly like stewed cartilage. 

If he jumped, his body would shatter like he slammed against asphalt. 

He chokes, drool dribbling in his mouth as his fine motor functions slip farther and farther away.

  
  


If he jumped, he’d just die.

Would the monsters go away?

Would they leave the humans alone? Leave his friends, leave Kacchan alone?

Well. He’ll die either way.

“Show me you deserve your title. Show me the water will not harm you. Jump.”

“DEKU, YOU WON’T SURVIVE THAT EVEN AS THE SON OF POSEIDON, DON’T BE FUCKING STUPID-”

Midoriya wants Bakugou to know that he’s dying either way.

His breaths are shallow.

“Retrieve your sword. Coward.”

_ “HEY, ONLY I CAN CALL HIM A COWARD-” _

He hears howling, and Bakugou’s shouts.

“You have no faith.” And she sounds almost pitying. “No faith in beings greater than someone as puny as you, as demonstrated by just my offspring, one that will never reach the power of the gods.” Her voice lowers, sounding harder, sounding steely, “as if they deserve worship, anyways. I do not blame you for your lack of faith, or for your cowardance. Die by my poison, and by your regrets.”

Midoriya’s tired.

And he knows nobody can save him. Not himself, not even the gods.

He can’t breathe. Yet somehow, he’s able to choke out a single sentence despite being barely able to feel his tongue: “yeah, I can’t swim.”

Silence.

Then. "Wait, Midoriya, you never learned how to _swim-"_

“What the fuck Deku like holy shit my expectations were _ low _ but what the FUCK.”

“Wait. Son of Poseidon, son of the sea god, and you can’t _ swim-” _ And Midoriya wants to laugh at the lady’s incredulous voice that’s almost deadpanned from shock.

Yeah, he’s a failure. 

He wants to smile. Wants to laugh, wants to tell her _ screw that _, but he's already incapable of moving his lips to form words. Instead, he stumbles forward, and collapses right through the hole.

The speed his body plummets down makes him think that his heart is ripping through his body, and for the first time, _ thank god for the poison _, because he can’t even feel his body.

* * *

They stare.

Even the Chimera faltered, looking over, as if questioning what the fuck.

“He can’t swim?” Echidna echoes, fixated on the hole.

"Damn. He never even went to YMCA?" Kirishima frowns. 

Bakugou’s heart dropped the moment Midoriya did, but he’s able to regain _ something, _ as a ridiculously hysterical and uncontrollable shriek of laughter suffocates his throat and pukes out through his gated teeth. “Coward, my fucking ass. Stupidity _ always _ overcomes any other emotion,” he leers, amused, and with the fucking mutt distracted, he slams the blade of his sword into the large paw of the monster, relishing in its roar.

Impala is treating Ponytail like a joke. She’s not even looking at her, yet her body is easily deflecting the girl without conscience movement, and instead, her eyes are trained on Kirishima, who’s now trying to aid Ponytail.

Bakugou stares at the dog, bounding back after taking another pathetically shallow swipe at the creature, contemplating if he should just use his father’s late sixteenth birthday gift on the creature.

Fire breathing. The mutt is most definitely immune to scorching heat. But the force of an explosion?

Bakugou doesn’t even _ know _ how he could get close enough to activate a blast- he lacks control over his power, doesn’t _ know _ if he can get within proximity to trigger a chain of explosions without concaving his own face in-

He scowls. 

Whatever.

_ Stupidity overcomes any emotion, right? _ He’s not going to get one-upped by goddamn _ Deku _ out of everyone. 

He takes a leap forward.

* * *

“They’re gone. Where the _ fuck _did they go? Isn’t that dangerous? Won't they come back or like. I don’t know. Eat citizens like fries?” Bakugou lours.

“No point in worrying over that now, let’s take our graces when offered,” Kirishima wheezes, yet, somehow his mouth has broken into a charismatically cutting smile, eyes darting about, zeroing in around him as if still expecting the Chimera to bound back in.

_ Ding. _

Their heads whip over in fear and anxiety, all of them pumped with cocaine adrenaline and at least a good pint of mild insanity. 

Todoroki and Medusa step out.

Bakugou wants to bash someone’s head in. 

“Oh hey guys.” Kirishima waves rather calmly with his large ass sword, as if he’s not crouching over an entire collapsed family.

Probably for the best they fainted.

“Where’s the bitch?” Mina screams, a ludicrous smile lopped across her frenzied countenance. 

And Bakugou thought this before, but somehow, the energy that Mina contains, reminds him a lot of Kirishima. It’s boundless, could be compressed into an injection, mildly feral, and probably illegal in some states. It's just that she's directionally challenged with malice, while Kirishima's harmless just intimidating. 

Same spectrum, different ends.

“Where’s _ Midoriya?” _ Todoroki gapes. 

Bakugou’s heart slows, and he doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but he _ hates _ it.

It hurts, it sucks, and he’s-

He doesn’t even _ know _.

He glances at the hole, and he sees the other two people with him slowly slide their gazes over it, as well.

All three in unison look back at Todoroki, whose eyes are pinballing off of all of them, as if attempting to assess the unforgiving situation. 

Bakugou feels strangely calm given the entire situation. He has an odd faith in Deku’s cockroach behaviour. Deku always comes skittering back whether or not people want him to, which strangely, makes him feel at ease. If anything, the most terrifying revelation that just happened in these past five minutes was the fact that Deku can’t _ swim. _

He takes a moment to realise none of them answered either of the Mina or Todoroki’s inquirations.

They got lucky.

Once Deku dipped, so did the fucking Armadillo and her dog on steroids, meaning Bakugou didn’t have to try and risk dislocating his entire arm with the force of a blast as the last resort.

Of course, they didn’t leave without saying some weirdass shit first, but that means nothing to him right now.

Said something about being ‘called back’. Looks like they were only targeting Deku, after all.

Sucks to suck. 

“Um.” Yaoyorozu begins, voice fried underneath the stress of the situation, and she’s been crying this entire time.

“He’s not dead.” Bakugou suddenly blurts.

And he kept preparing himself for the worst- but truthfully-

“Wow, because that’s a very reassuring and normal response to a question of _ where someone is, _” Todoroki remarks passive-aggressively.

“He jumped into the water. He heals in the water.” Bakugou growls, pointing at the hole in the floor with wisps of smoke curling off the charred metal. 

We lost him? Oh my god, _no_. We're already so understaffed," Mina says.

Todoroki’s eyes nearly roll up into his head, and Mina waves her arms impatiently. “Okay but. Where’s Echidna, though?”

“Gone?” Yaoyorozu winces.

“What do you mean _ gone?- _ shuddup, Demos, I don’t _ care-” _

And it’s hard to explain how in the midst of trying not to die, Yaoyorozu abandoning her bow to straight up just lunge for Edna, and Kirishima boomerranging his large sword over against the creature’s back-

“Yeah, Indonesia just dipped,” Bakugou mutters, massaging his knees, his body still folding over from the aftershock of adrenaline and immense mental pressure flooding his body and draining everything else all at once.

“Echidna.” Kirishima translates.

“Close enough,” Bakugou retaliates bitterly. 

They just vanished. The Chimera suddenly morphed back into a Chihuahua, and before they can at least punt the fucker, she grabbed him and disappeared down the hole as well.

Leaving them alone with the smoking hole, bruised and battered, and shaking.

Shivering.

“He jumped. Down there? _ You think he can control the water even down there? _ He’s been officially aware of his powers for like, four days? Less than four days? _ ” _ Todoroki questions in hushed disbelief. “That _ has _ to be more than a hundred meters." Then, his face irons out into indifference. "That's it. I can't go back to camp." Bakugou has no idea what the hell he's saying, but whatever.

“Gotta be at almost two-hundred meters, actually,” Yaoyorozu winces. “Six-hundred-and-thirty feet was the arch’s height.” She moans, and Bakugou winces, because holy shit he doesn’t have the mental capacity to deal with someone else’s mental breakdown. “I shouldn’t have brought us here, Midoriya, I’m so _ sorry _.”

“Not your fault, it’s his for coming up here in the first place. You offered us many opportunities to back the fuck out, and we didn’t,” Bakugou remarks harshly. He doesn’t have time for this. “Not your problem, and if you think that way, Deku will literally revive himself just to haunt you for the rest of your life for feeling bad because he’s _ that _ annoying.”

“But you guys said you had a bad feeling and I didn’t listen, and instead, I just took time out of our trip, endangered us and mortals, for what? A _ visit?” _

Bakugou falls quiet. “This isn’t just a visit, and you know it. This is important to you, isn’t it? It’s more than that. Don’t be condescending towards your own interests. Have more self-respect. You call it a visit, then you’re also disrespecting our self-worth. Like we’d waste our fucking time with something so worthless.”

“Yeah!” Kirishima tacks on with contrasting vitality. “What he said, but less explicit. We wanted to come here on our own accord. Besides, isn’t it cool? We came face-to-face with a Chimera and the _ Mother of Monsters _ herself? I mean, uncool that others got roped into it for sure, but _ still _. Like, objectively, coming across them while at such a cool scenery that creates an awesome setting for a fight is pretty wicked.” And it’s obvious that while what he’s saying is true, he’s also hyping it up for Yaoyorozu’s sake.

But it’s so natural and sounds so genuine, that Bakugou supposes it doesn’t really matter.

“Great, great.” Bakugou breathes, his respiration whistling out from between his clenched teeth. “Let’s head down. He’ll be down there.”

“Are you _ sure _?” Todoroki whispers, staring at the hole in obvious disbelief.

“He better fucking be, or else he’d be glad he’s dead so he doesn’t have to face me,” Bakugou snarls.

He doesn’t know how to reassure them otherwise.

Thankfully, Kirishima and Yaoyorozu both appear to be convinced that he’s not dead either.

Because the only other possibility is one that no one wants to face if they can avoid it.

For Bakugou, his faith in Midoriya's life is _ different. _ They’re doing it because the other ending is too gruesome to acknowledge if they don’t have to. However, Bakugou thinks he’s alive _ because _ he’s Midoriya. How can he explain to them that Deku doesn’t just _ die _ because the world tells him to? That nobody, and disgustingly enough not even Bakugou, can get him to do whatever they want? Deku, being a pussy and pushover and people-pleasing suck-up without even _ meaning _ to, is strangely the most formidably stubborn bitchboy he’s ever encountered. “Get in the fucking car, we can’t stay here,” Bakugou walks towards the other end of the arch’s tram car that Mina and Todoroki walked out of. 

“And _ what? _ Leave them?” Kirishima motions to the family piled on top of each other like dead bodies because he attempted to move them aside. 

Now they just look like murderers.

Bakugou scoffs. “They’re not injured. At least outwardly. We can’t stay here longer. We’ll just call the police or something.”

They look at each other.

“...anyone’s got a phone?” Todoroki asks dryly.

“We’ll notify someone once we get down there.”

“I’m sure they’ll see the hole in the floor from down below without our notification,” Todoroki continues, adamant to be sarcastic.

Bakugou’s going to punch him.

* * *

The poison is probably a depressant, more depressing than Midoriya's life is itself.

Because while cannonballing into the water, his heart rate probably couldn’t even go above a sixty. Even when he witnessed water hug him, grasping him against gravity even before he hit its surface, his heart didn’t beat quick enough to chase away the black splotches eating through his vision. 

_ Ah. _

The water is cold, a welcoming contrast to what’s searing through his bloodstream and tearing apart his tissue.

He opens his eyes, water hydrating his cracked eyes, his vision coming into focus for the first time in the past two minutes. Not even hydrating, just healing, he guesses.

He looks around him, underwater, at the waxy burger wrapper drifting by like a jellyfish.

It’s only now, alive, being able to breathe and feel his facial muscles and sensitive fingers respond to his commands, does he notice his surroundings.

Trash.

It’s trash.

Why is the water brown _ why is the water brown _-

_ How dirty is this water _\- oh my gosh I’m touching it-

He should’ve kept his eyes shut.

Then, at that line of thought, Midoriya realizes with mild surprise and dumb slowness, _ oh _, he’s not wet. At all. The water’s not touching him. The brown, murky water is not touching him.

He feels dry. 

He doesn’t have the disturbing wet-sock sensation.

He glances at a cigarette lighter drifting by, followed by an empty, hollow deodorant container.

He snatches the Inc lighter, eyes trembling, and he feels _ stronger _ than he did before he even faced the Chimera. He’s not tired, like he just jumped off a hundred-something meter national U.S.A monument after getting half his shoulder shredded by a poisonous and rabid chihuahua (so basically just any chihuahua) and ended up getting sucked in by sentient water.

Therefore, even with a stuttering breath and shaky mind, he’s able to flick alight the lighter on the first try.

The fire flickers in its own little air underneath the water. 

Holy crap.

He pockets it, and pauses. There’s something else in his jeans, and he finds his fingers grasping around a familiarly slick body.

_ Riptide’s cap. _ He quickly whirls around, and he sees there, illuminated by its own shine, sticking up from the mucky bottom of the river.

Something he didn’t know was weighing down on his chest, dissolves. He walks down like he’s on land, and retrieves Riptide, capping him before pocketing him.

_ Thank you. _

He looks up, and doubles back.

A catfish with its gaping mouth stares back at him, hovering in the water.

Oh.

_ “What do you say?” _

Midoriya jumps.

The catfish’s mouth doesn’t move to make anymore words, as it simply mouths its rhythmic heavy breathing.

“Uh.” 

I’m talking to a catfish_ . I’m talking to a catfish. _ “Thank you?” He vocalizes his thanks this time, not in Japanese, but in Greek. 

_ “Right. Now. Child, move. _”

And he was staring _ hard _ at the catfish. The catfish’s mouth didn’t move once to the sentence.

Okay. So he wasn’t talking to the catfish. 

Meaning Midoriya was just talking to a catfish on his own terms, and someone was probably watching this from some galaxy livestream (holy Twitch), watching him act like a fool. 

“Move where?” He speaks, voice loud and enunciated as if he isn’t underwater.

He looks above, and the muddy water with floating silt that doesn’t land on him at all, fractures the sunlight above like broken butterscotch.

Above the water, are all his friends. Kacchan. _ The family. There was a _ child _ . _

Midoriya wants to drown himself.

Unfortunately (and anticlimactically), he can’t.

Really, unlucky.

_ “Izuku, your father is proud of you. _”

“I’m not,” he smiles to nothing, and he begins walking, no direction in mind. He should just stay here. In the polluted waters.

But his friends would worry.

He swallows.

No point in wallowing in pity.

_ “Do not think such dark thoughts. You have a journey to _ complete." Right, because that's all they care about, _"child_ , _ go to the beach in Santa Monica.” _

“Santa? Like?” Midoriya vocalizes a ton of question marks. And he wants to hate the gods. He still kind of does. Poseidon included. But he’s not going to be bratty about it at the moment, especially since he’s sure that it’s his lineage that broke his fall (and a dark voice reminds him that it’s his lineage that placed him in such a dangerous situation in the first place-), and he doesn’t want to stir up problems right now.

_ “Santa Monica. It’s in New Mexico.” _ He has no idea where that is. Mexico? Something warm radiates next to him, and he blinks, looking over.

There’s a lady walking with him. A golden silhouette of a feminine figure with long hair flowing behind her.

He nearly breaks his pace.

_ “Brave one. I can’t stay.” _

Midoriya smiles weakly. He’s not brave. He’s a coward. He ran away. That family behind them never had a chance.

_ “This place is too foul for my presence.” _ He glances at the plastic pop rings floating about. Fair. She stares at him, eyes glitching, as if she doesn’t truly exist. _ “Do not accept the gifts.” _

He hesitates. “Huh?” Yeah, he understood really _ nothing _ she said, but _ gifts? _

Before he can ask, she’s gone.

Oh.

Well.

Okay.

The floor is sloping upwards. He’s near the edge of the river. 

He doesn’t want to walk up. Face a world that doesn’t want him. A world where he only attracts monsters to civilians.

_ The others would be worried. _

He looks behind him. 

He should say thank you.

_ Say it. Don’t be difficult. _ Say thanks to dad. He should. 

He feels something wet and difficult splatter against his cheeks. Weird. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t get wet if he doesn’t want to.

He walks up without looking back a second time.

* * *

He feels even more ashamed as he walks out of water.

It’s like evolution, but _ not _. A fish that walked out of water.

Midoriya makes eye contact with a kid.

Midoriya waves.

The girl is tugging on her mom’s sleeve, pointing to him, muttering something in English.

Midoriya quickly slips into the crowd.

* * *

“Hey. Random question. Did Empanada not like Ares?” Bakugou turns to Yaoyorozu, who blinks, glancing down from where she’s fighting through the flood of tourists taking pictures of the exploded arch, trying to find Midoriya near the river bank.

Bakugou ducks aside, letting the crowd put distance between him and the authority figures attempting to assess the situation.

At least the family is now being wheeled away in stretchers.

“Echidna. And yeah. Ares killed one of her kin during the first war between the Titans and the gods.” Todoroki answers for him. 

Bakugou thinks back to when she started targeting him specifically after Deku disappeared. Ah. Fair enough. 

“What _ was _ that dog she had?”

“The Chimera. A chimera.” Todoroki continues, and Bakugou _ really _ hates how he’s the one answering his questions.

“Damn. It was ugly,” Bakugou wrinkles his face, taking a step back as a reporter walks by. 

“-ight, an adolescent boy was involved in this freak explosion too, according to eyewitness accounts. A security guard took account of who should’ve been in the cars or in the arch at that time.” A man hurriedly speaks into a microphone, gesturing over a man wheeling over a large professional camera, and Bakugou crunches away, clenching hard on his sunglasses that somehow stayed on this entire time. “I know, Steve. I can’t believe it. Seems like this case is linked with the combusted bus captured just two days ago-”

Bakugou quickly yanks an oblivious Kirishima away, who blinks at him, confused but smiling.

God he hates his face.

“I know right, ugly. Geez, can’t believe we share the same blood,” Mina scowls, and Bakugou shakes his head, realizing she’s still on this topic.

“Don’t all monsters share the same blood?” Bakugou frowns. 

“Yeah, but we’re _ literally _within the main family. In most versions, we’re like. Grandmas-granddaughters.” 

Bakugou stares.

“Mhm.” She nods, appearing rather smug despite her scornful tone. 

“Damn. If she’s your elder, no wonder she kept saying she was the mother of monsters-”

“Watch your mouth-”

“Oh fuck you. I bet that Chimera or whatever is your direct brother-”

“She. Chimera’s a girl.”

He scoffs. 

“And Chimera is honestly regal, just a bitch.”

“Hey, wait, up before you bite off my head. Is she really an important figure or sum?”

Mina shrugs flippantly. “She really is the Mother of Monsters, it’s not a light title. When I say, all her offspring can be called sons of a bitch-”

“Harsh words, didn’t think you were capable of them.” He mumbles, impressed. “Play on words?” He thinks of the literal chihuahua. 

And Bakugou can see through the dark pink tint of her shades, her eyes roll around. “All her offspring are technically mutts. Mixed breeds of various common species, to create their own kind.” 

“So is the Chimera like a species? Or a name and she’s the only one of her kind?” Bakugou inquires.

“They’re a species. But that, that was the original Chimera.” She elaborates.

“Huh. And they're all just. Called ‘Chimera’?” She nods. “Fucking monsters. Y’all are just Pokémon, I swear.” She scowls. “You know, that Chimera, kind of looked familiar. Then again, like you said, they’re all familiar animals mashed into one.” Bakugou yawns, though, despite his seemingly lax state, he’s eyeballing the reporter. 

“You’re from Japan, right?” She suddenly says, grasping his shoulder, and Bakugou jerks, irritated.

“Yeah? Why?”

You guys have the ‘nue,’ right?” Mina’s voice draws him back to the conversation.

He blinks. “The _ yokai? _Like? The dog-monkey-snake-tiger-whatever demon thing?” He frowns. “Oh, I see where you’re going with this.”

She nods. “I mean. Archean religion is not the only ancient religion. I’m sure in various religions, their spirits, their monsters, their creation-myths exist in their own way. Who knows? Certainly not me. Or maybe the entire world all witnessed the same events, and made their own interpretations of them. After a while, those creatures, living in their own areas, would localize, differ from each other. Like Darwin’s birds. At least that’s what I think. I don’t know. I don’t get out much past my store these days, but I know other religions’ beliefs are just as real as I am.”

Bakugou stares.

“Y’all can _ evolve?” _

Mina shrugs. “As stories of us evolve, we evolve with them. It iz what it iz. I mean. Eons ago I would not be quoting modern day generation-z phrases, yet here I am.”

“Fucking _ evolve _.” Bakugou's lips ripple into a leer. “You guys really are Pokémon.”

“Oh yo! I see Midoriya.” Kirishima clasps his hands together, eyes blazing.

“How do you know?” Bakugou inquires, then he sees a sudden seaweed, cannibalized Cosmo (and Cosmo doesn’t look like he’s doing good. Guess Wanda finally left him), trudge out of water, and nearly fall flat on his face.

“Ah.” He retracts his previous disbelief. 

“YO, MIDORIYA!” Kirishima yells through his cupped hands.

“Be a bit more discreet, won’t you?” Mina scoffs light-heartedly.

“You’re talking to yourself in broad daylight,” Bakugou counters in disbelief.

She looks at him, offended. “I’m literally talking to over three-hundred sentient beings, right now.”

“Either way, talking to yourself in America on the street isn’t that strange.” Yaoyorozu reasons. “Methamphetamine runs rampant from what I heard.”

* * *

“Santa Monica.” Todoroki echoes.

“What the fuck is a Santa Monica?” Bakugou echoes, brows furrowed.

“I can’t believe we’re back on here.” Midoriya says faintly, head bobbing along with the ridges of the Amtrak. He’s turning as green as his hair.

“Wait, I can’t believe she called you a coward! Ugh! For what? Disbelieving in the gods? No, yo, Izuku!” Mina prods at his chest, and with each poke, Midoriya's eyes roll in opposite directions. He’s a goner. “Don’t listen to her! There’s nothing cowardly about having the most faith in yourself.” Then, quieter: “or standing for what you believe in.”

“You know, I get that’s supposed to have a more profound sentiment,” Bakugou pops open another bag of chips. “But you really should write the script for _ My Little Pony _.”

She flips him off.

“Granny,” he leers.

“Skinned abalone.”

“Chemically burnt _ Yo Gaba Gaba _ character.”

“Anyways!” Yaoyorozu clears her throat loudly before either of them cause a scene loud enough for fucking Steve and his reporter bud to tack on a third domestic terrorist attack onto Bakugou’s impromptu resume. “Midoriya, can you mention more about that river spirit that your Father sent?”

“Honestly. No. That was it,” he shrugs apologetically. 

“You know what we can mention more of?” Mina hums. “How Bakugou was genuinely worried about his frie-”

And the same way she just crossed the line, he takes a leap over it as well by physically clocking her in the face with his water bottle.

* * *

It’s June 14, and another day closer to the end of the world.

Yay.

“Okay, I’ll contact Aizawa to ask him about the river spirit.” Yaoyorozu gestures them into a shallow part of the woods shrouding behind the Amtrak station. 

“Shouldn’t we not use phones?” Midoriya inquires, wary.

“Nobody mentioned anything about phones,” she grins mischievously, leading them farther in, until they approach a nearby stream. 

“Hey, Midoriya, can we borrow some of your power?”

“Huh?”

“Like, waterbending.” Kirishima explains gleefully. “You know. Pull an Avatar.” 

He has no idea what they’re saying.

“Right.” He says with confidence he most certainly does not have.

“Just like. Try and make a fine mist?” Yaoyorozu attempts to expound. “Enough to make a rainbow,” she points to the fine morning warming them just enough.

Midoriya does not think he can do that.

“Um.” He turns to the water. _ Mist. Make a mist. C’mon. Make a mist. _

The water remains still, the stream unmoving and glittery.

_ Crap. _ And as if he can telepathically talk to the water like a futuristic dolphin, he screeches in his mind, thinking his screams can somehow be loud enough to transfer into outward sound waves and do some mental echolocation: _ PLEASEE my friends seriously need some help and I’ve done literally nothing except bring _ stress _ and we’re kind of in a life-disturbing situation. _

Nothing moves.

And if water could respond, he knows it’s sending back vibes of laughter through its own literal nonexistent waves. 

“Do you know how to do that?”

“I don’t think anyone but people like you would know,” Bakugou snorts condescendingly.

Midoriya sighs. “Aren’t like. Powers granted by gods? Maybe in that case making the water listen to me is only when Poseidon feels like it.” He states, avoiding the name ‘dad’. It’s too obvious when he has to say it aloud.

But. That explanation doesn’t feel right though. Not after what Echidna said; after what he experienced. 

“Ah, that’s fine. I got this. I’ll swallow a bunch of water and spit it out over, and y’all just IM quickly,” Kirishima offers.

Midoriya’s now officially lost.

“‘IM’? Instant Messaging?” Midoriya attempts to clear things up for himself.

“No. Iris-messaging. You’ll see,” Todoroki says kindly.

“Mm. I’ve seen it only once. It’s _ so _ cool.” Kirishima bounds beside him. “Anyways, here-”

“Yeah. Swallow the water and all the brain-eating parasites. At least you won’t be affected; you’re clearly too stupid to have a brain.” Bakugou scowls, and Kirishima just laughs at that.

“That won’t work, and yeah, don’t swallow random water,” Yaoyorozu shakes her head. “Mm. Well, we have a spray gun. Kirishima, you think you can pump it long enough for a whole message?”

Kirishima nods happily, “with my muscles? For sure.” He jokes, while taking out a water gun out of the front pocket of his backpack.

“We had that the entire time?” Bakugou points, flabbergasted less with shock, more with disgust.

“Yep!” Kirishma then begins pumping the trigger, sending a stream of water up in the air. Then, filtering through the water, comes a faint rainbow. 

Yaoyorozu fishes a drachma out of her pocket, and flips it into the stream.

It disappears into the mist with a shimmer of golden dust.

What.

“What the fuck, can she do that.”

“Currency exists in every culture, Bakugou,” Todoroki replies tonelessly.

Midoriya turns away so that he doesn’t have to see them duke it out. They’re big boys, they can handle it themselves.

“What is this?”

“Iris!” Her eyes flash, and Midoriya senses it.

His kind. She’s just like him. 

The type to be interested in the system and mechanisms of everything, to know the existence of all concepts, to _ understand _. 

“If she’s not busy, she’ll take our message.” She turns to the rainbow. “Camp Half-Blood,” she states authoritatively. 

Midoriya’s jaw dips open as strawberry fields shimmer into view within the frame of the rainbow, and the screen panels past them, and finally stops by the first human it approaches.

“Sero?” He gasps.

At this, the figure turns around, blinking. “O- Midoriya?” A familiarly distinct grin breaks across his face. “Oh crap! Hey! What? I didn’t expect to see y’all!”

And suddenly, Midoriya misses them.

He didn’t even know he would. 

He searches past Sero, as if he could get a glimpse at Iida or Uraraka or that one guy in the medical tents who always looks like the personification of a stroke. He refocuses his attention back onto Sero, who’s waving at Momo, who’s cheerfully beaming back, despite her greasy hair and dusty visage. 

“What’s up? There must be a reason for you guys to call, after all.” Sero gets to the point.

“Right, is Aizawa there?” Yaoyorozu states, more calmly in contrast to her previous excitement.

Midoriya feels the warmth of a person beside him, and he shifts aside to let Todoroki into frame.

“Todoroki!” Sero greets, before adding, “no, Aizawa’s currently breaking up a fight.” He sighs. “Almost like the Trojan War again, given the cabins and the backings. Guess word got out about Poseidon and Zeus’ fight. Probably by the same dude who let in the hellhound.” 

At this, Yaoyorozu shrugs. “As if that matters. A lot of the divides amongst the gods throughout the war were based on personal preferences or Zeus trying to maintain balance by appealing to a few gods’ pleas.” She says smartly. “It’s really all politics, isn’t it fascinating?”

“Tsk. Fighting? Fighting’s good for bonding.” Bakugou shoves his face between Yaoyorous and Midoriya’s.

“Mm. Is that why Todoroki suddenly has a bruise on his cheek and your hair is dirt brown?” Kirishima observes.

“No, it’s because I fucking hate him,” Bakugou replies calmly.

“Sero,” Yaoyorozu addresses once again, “well, I guess can you ask Aizawa about Poseidon’s river messengers? See if any of them show up golden. Also ask him about whether or not Hades shows up on thrones in dreams.”

Sero nods, though, his expression as turned thoughtful. “Yeah I mean. I guess Hades has been showing up in one of you guys’ dreams?” And he makes eye contact with Midoriya, and Midoriya smiles awkwardly in unspoken admittance. “Well, I can guess it’s Hades. I mean, who else? He was there in the last meeting with Zeus, he could’ve definitely taken the bolt.”

“But I thought gods can’t directly mess with each others' properties?” Midoriya asks. “Unless if working through others, but who would even do that?”

Sero sure eyebrows scrunch together, “probably someone who can slip amongst the throne room invisible, I mean. Hades likes invisibility stuff- he does have that Helm of Darkness.”

Midoriya falls quiet.

Todoroki was there, he mentioned it before. And he has an invisibility cap.

And judging by how no one’s building off of Sero’s idea- they all reached to that conclusion.

Though, Midoriya’s sure that none of them truly suspects it’s Todoroki.

Sero, probably realising the source of their sudden silence, jumps back, “oh crap, no I didn’t mean you Todoroki, obviously not. I was just thinking out loud-”

“No, I get it,” Todoroki replies indifferently.

The conversation stutters to an uncomfortable halt.

“Oh, wait, shit.” Bakugou suddenly drawls loudly. “Oi, Sero, you have any idea how we got here? From Japan to America? Without crossing the sea?”

Sero blinks. “Huh?”

“Like. We got from those two different countries over land, in a span of a couple minutes.”

He stares. 

Bakugou growls in frustration. “Because me and Deku, we got over into America from _ Japan _. Got an explanation for that?”

“Oh what? That’s kind of wack,” Sero laughs, and the tension lowers slightly. “I’ve never heard anything about that, but for sure, I’ll ask Aizawa later ‘bout that.”

“Guys, my arm’s getting sore,” Kirishima warns, “any last thoughts?”

Midoriya has one, one that he didn’t even know he would feel bold enough to say until he left his mouth without him being aware of it: “Sero, who do you think is the traitor?”

Sero looks at all of them, eyes wide, stunned. Then: “geez, I mean. I don’t know. I really don’t want to think that. You know. _ Anyone _ is the traitor,” he mumbles.

And Midoriya doesn’t let his disappointment show. Of course no one would want to even believe or doubt anyone’s credibility, especially not from a population of close friends and family. “Oh, but Midoriya, how are the shoes?” He suddenly asks.

Shoes?

Midoriya takes a moment to realise what he’s talking about.

“Oh!” He gasps, “yeah, the shoes! They fit well!” And _ oh my god, I’m lying. _ He didn’t wear them since he already had his own pair. They’re sitting in his backpack at the moment. Damn. 

“Really? They fit well and everything?” Sero beams.

“Mhm!” He laughs, guilt eating him alive. “Thanks for giving me them.”

“Yeah, no problem.” He glances behind him, and they watch in the distance as a sudden fire flare up in the background, smog eating through the air.

They stare.

Sero turns back to face them. “So, guys, how far have you guys gotten?” He asks calmly.

“There’s a fire going on behind you.”

“We’re like. Midwest? West? Close?” Todoroki estimates doubtfully.

“Oh, cool.” Sero nods approvingly.

“Sero,” Kirishima attempts this time, “we can hear screaming.”

“Glad to hear it. Be skeptical of Hades, okay, be careful,” Sero suggests.

“Sero,” Midoriya tries. They all stare over his shoulder and at the bonfire that’s currently blazing through the lawn.

  
  


A nearby tree lights up like a torch.

“Sero.” Midoriya echoes, voice faint to his own ears, slightly more urgent.

“Anyways, I’ll be rooting for all of you,” he says happily.

None of them responds as the tree cracks, falling down from behind him.

“Anyways, I have to go now,” Sero adds casually. 

The connection ends after that a goodbye on his side, that goes unreciporcated by the rest of them just watching the camp fall apart from behind him.

The moment it does, Midoriya turns to Yaoyorozu to ask what Iris is, what _ that _ entire thing was, _ how _ it worked when-

“Weirdo.” Bakugou scoffs.

Midoriya turns around, prepared to face Bakugou’s scathing glare, only to find Bakugou glowering at a weed sprouting out from underneath a rock. “Me?” Todoroki suddenly asks.

“No. I mean. _ Yeah _, but I meant specifically him. Sero. He has. Weirdo vibes.” Bakugou explains everything by explaining absolutely nothing at all. 

“Sero tends to just ignore problems. Don’t worry, he’s just good at that,” Kirishima reassures. “Besides, our camp gets set on fire by our own campers like, at least twice a week,” he adds with a casual gesture of his hand.

However, Midoriya’s known Bakugou long enough to get the feeling of his statement. “Are you. Are you saying Sero’s the traitor?”

“I didn’t _ say _ he was a traitor. I just said he feels weird.” Bakugou scowls defensively.

“Sero’s a good guy, he’s pretty social.” Kirishima says musingly. “Though, not everyone’s compatible or will like each other. Like, what can you do about it,” he stretches his jaw. “Guys, I’m hungry for real food. We’ve just been eating snacks. Let’s go to a restaurant. We have actual change.”

“Mm, yesss, I miss my place.” Mina whines. She then perks up, “maybe we’ll find another joiner like me?”

“Hell yeah,” Kirishima cheers.

“Fuck that.” Bakugou lours.

Midoriya thinks about Sero. He then thinks about Bakugou’s statement. _ Then _ he thinks about twelve-year-old Bakugou telling Midoriya as a kid that Kageyama down the street was a bitchboy and untrustworthy.

He later learned that it was because Kageyama gnawed on playground wood chips while he was bored.

He decides that Bakugou’s evaluation of others is already fundamentally invalidated just on the basis that he hates everyone for breathing. 

Satisfied by that, he begins trudging behind the others. 

He hears someone heel next to him. “Oh, Todoroki.”

“Sero’s a good guy,” Todoroki suddenly says.

Startled by his sudden proclamation, Midoriya just smiles. “I don’t disbelieve that.” He figures Todoroki’s miffed on Sero’s behalf over Bakugou’s opinion, and just wants to vent it in the most nonchalant fashion. “He was the first one to show me around camp, made me feel actually included.”

“He.” Todoroki hesitates, and turns to Midoriya, swiveling a piercing eye over. Midoriya inclines a brow, curious. “He was the one who got Kaminari and I to Half-Blood safely.” 

_ Kaminari _. That name again. The one terrifyingly taboo name that Midoriya has no right to approach.

“Hm. That’s brave of him.”

“I ran away from home. The mortal mom that raised all of us together actually had demigod children of her own, and one regular human children with him, before my dad had me with Athena.”

“Oh? Really?” Midoriya replies testily, and he’s starting to feel he just got lassoed into an unexpected conversation that he doesn’t know if he has the capabilities to handle. Not like he doesn’t want to _ try _, but he isn’t entirely sure if he can provide the comfort Todoroki is seeking for.

The thing is, when Todoroki said he’d let his mom _ rot- _

It was the way he said it without hesitation, and with decisive confidence that terrified him; not his decision. Midoriya understands others will have families he won’t comprehend or relate upon, but it’s the cold conviction, and the idea that his brutal indifference could be valid, that terrifies him.

Especially when it comes from someone he cares for and _ likes _. To have such the heart to exclaim a thing (and doing it he doesn’t mind, when offered a decision, one has to have an answer after all), it’s just the preplanned inevitable murder and the casual mention of someone’s own mom that’s unsettling, even though he’s trying to ignore it like it doesn’t bother him. It’s not his place to judge, after all.

He should’ve smothered his shock better. Shouldn’t have responded with obvious discomfort.

But he couldn’t help it, at that moment. 

“Mm. She had twins. None of them would tell me who their dad was, but I didn’t mind.” He hesitates. “Then Touya, one of them, disappeared.” He tacks on lightly, “I don’t know what happened to him.”

_That sucks._ _I’m sorry._ He doesn't know what to say. If anything, he can selfishly feel marginally comforted by the idea that nothing he says would comfort Todoroki anyways; he’s not entitled enough to believe that he’s close enough to be able to do that, after all. 

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel _ sad _. Something sick and empty carves a dimensional hole in his pit. “That’s awful.”

Todoroki shrugs roughly at that, neither disagreeing nor agreeing. “My step-mom, Rei, I-” he pauses, “I can’t really _ tell _ , but I feel like she doesn’t. Care. That Touya just vanished. And my dad really tried to use him as a heir, but when I came along, my dad wanted me to be successful in the mortal world. He completely ignored the fact that I was a demigod, and therefore _ couldn’t _ fit in with the rest of the humans even though I genuinely wanted to. It’s stupid. He wanted the benefits of me being the son of Athena, but he couldn’t handle the fact that I wasn’t entirely human. Not like I wanted to be a part of the godly world at that time, since it only brought me trouble.” 

And Midoriya wonders how Todoroki was born. Assumedly by Athena herself, though he questions exactly how Todoroki got down to the mortal world and into a mortal person’s hands.

Immediately after, he feels ashamed for having wandering thoughts while Todoroki’s disclosing clearly sensitive content to him, and _ wow _ he’s _ really _ doing the most in all the worst ways today.

“My other brother was born from my dad and my step-mom, so he’s just a mortal, but he grew up around us, and it’s because of him I realised I couldn’t stay with them. Monsters kept showing up, especially more and more as I grew older. And then my sister disappeared one day.” He then cracks a strangely natural yet unfamiliar smile, and glances down at Midoriya.

And Midoriya knows he looks just _ sad _, because he’s always been expressive about whatever he’s feeling at the moment, but he can’t help it because-

That’s rough. Seriously rough.

“I was kind of reassured by her sudden disappearance, though. Since it was so much like Touya’s, it made me feel like, _ oh _, so Touya’s probably alive, and didn’t just randomly die. Instead, there’s a pattern. They’re probably somewhere out on their own. Besides, them being gone, meant I was the last demigod. If I left, it’s reassured that Natsuo- my mortal brother, would be safe.”

“So you ran away?”

“So I ran away." He steps over a branch.

They’re entering the exit of the shallow woods, now. They must've headed in another direction than the one they took coming in, because they're not at the Amtrak station right now. 

“Oh guys, look, a diner!” Kirishima shouts from the front, footsteps ahead with Mina who’s laughing.

Bakugou and Yaoyorozu are surprisingly walking side-by-side in silence, just ahead of him and Todoroki.

They have time.

“And when I ran away, I ran into Kaminari, Aoyama and Sero, who were also doing the same. They were returning to camp.” He lowers his voice, even though no one is focused on them. “Kaminari was the son of Zeus.”

And _ really _, the ‘no children’ pact they made was clearly nothing but a joke. Midoriya represses an inappropriate mocking snort at this unsurprising revelation. A joke.

If he was Bakugou, he might’ve dared to say that the gods are a joke themselves.

He’s not Bakugou, though.

Midoriya himself may not have faith in them, but he knows Todoroki and Momo does, and he wants to respect that. He definitely doesn’t have respect in their hierarchy or agree with their decisions, but in a sense, isn’t this not only their family situation, but also their religion? He doesn’t want to crap on someone’s religion as a whole. 

“So we came across a lot of monsters. Like. A _ lot _ of them. And eventually, we made it to the border of Camp, but so did all the hordes. Kaminari was overtaken by there, since he was the only one who really had power against them, and we just had worn out weapons. He basically stood his ground while we ran into Camp. He died on that hill, but then Zeus took pity on him and reincarnated him into a tree.”

Honestly, Midoriya doesn’t even know how to feel about it. Sadness, injust, hot dangerous resentment that he chooses to _ not _ acknowledge, all of that exists-

But there was also a lot of fantasy in that story that Midoriya has yet to reconcile with. Because. A _ tree? _

He then reminds himself he survived off a hundred-ninety something meter jump into water, and therefore shouldn’t be judging.

“Sero wasn’t really the same after that, but he’s definitely so loyal to the camp. Especially because Kaminari gave his life for it- they were best friends, like blood-brothers. And Kaminari’s tree still has magical properties that act as a barrier for camp, Sero would never betray Kaminari.” Then, in a more hushed timbre: “He wouldn't betray anyone.”

“No wonder you’re pretty defensive over Sero. He sounds like a good guy,” Midoriya comments gently.

Todoroki stares at him, as if attempting to understand something. Finally, he glances away, saying, “I think he’s a good guy. I think he’s great. I’m not emotionally attached to him past that, though.”

“Oh, really, I thought-” Midoriya hesitates, “I don’t know, you guys looked friendly.”

Todoroki frowns at that. “He’s definitely one of the people I’m closest to- how could I not, given the time we shared. But I don’t really do friends.” Then, almost carefully, he tacks on a rather strange: “no offense.”

Midoriya laughs at that. “I mean. Aren’t we being friends right now?”

Todoroki looks at him. “That’s why I said no offense. Because no.”

Midoriya gives a crooked smile at that, but doesn’t push it. “I guess.” He indulges in that. Whatever. If Todoroki says they’re not friends, then he won’t attempt to persuade him or himself otherwise. He used to act like that.

It only pushed others away, though.

“It’s not like I dislike anyone. I just don’t care about that. I just want to get stronger. It’s possible for demigods to survive in the human world with a good amount of luck, setting, and strength.” He looks at Midoriya, and if contemplating something. “If I don’t have the best luck, I’ll just compensate through strength. I never told anyone else this, but I want to find and live with my siblings again. Something I can only do if I can guarantee I can keep all of us safe together. I don’t need anyone else past them.”

Midoriya makes a noise of agreement. “That’s fair. But,” he contemplates if it’s really his place to say this, and decides _ whatever, _he truly does think this way, and he’s never been good at not being nosy: “being close to other people isn’t replacing them. You can’t ever replace experiences or memories you have with people- they’re too individualized and unique for that, so becoming close to other people isn’t betraying those you knew before.” Midoriya finally conjures an answer, struggling to keep his thoughts in check while speaking at the same time. “But about your goal, I think you can do it. I’m sure you can. I hope you accomplish it- your siblings, they definitely miss you too.”

Todoroki nods stiffly. “I miss them too,” he says blandly.

They make it into the middle of the parking lot.

“Finally, real fucking food,” Bakugou grunts, scratching his nape.

“Should. Should we head inside into a public area looking like the way we do? We probably smell, too,” Yaoyorozu says worriedly.

“Nah, y’all smell like acid, it’ll be fine,” Mina assesses. She then pauses, glancing at Midoriya, “you kinda smell like dirty-rag water, do you know what I’m talking about?” He knows exactly what she’s talking about. “It’s whatever. We already sat in a train looking the way we do.”

“We’re like Bratz dolls that got dunked in rain water.” Bakugou mutters. 

A rather oddly fitting description, given that all of them look like their outfits were chosen as a Sims character put on 'randomized.’ 

“Glamorous, then?” Mina hums.

Bakugou sniffs haughtily. “Sure. Glamorous like a cracked wad of gum on a hot sidewalk.”

“Hating me won’t make your dad love you,” Mina retorts hotly.

Bakugou’s tongue kisses his teeth sharply. “Hating you brings me joy, and loving my dad does the opposite. There’s a reason why I do what I do.”

“Think they’ll take us given that we basically look homeless?” Kirishima now sounds worried, almost upset. “I really wanted pancakes, you know.”

“I want to try a burger,” Todoroki says, eyes flashing dangerously for such a dull tone.

Midoriya wonders if he smells like a backed-up city sewer system, and feels self-conscious all of a sudden. It’s not like he got wet by the dirty Mississippi waters, but then again, that doesn’t mean the stench would’ve have clung onto him. 

He tries to convince himself Mina only noticed due to her animalistic counterparts.

That doesn’t help, as it reminds him there are probably over three hundred beings now shittalking his scent right now.

“I mean. Mina took us in that one time,” Kirishima says uneasily.

“Yeah, and she’s literally a nutcase.” Bakugou scowls.

“And you guys are literally unstable children being sent to your executions, what’s your point?” She retorts.

“I mean. Worst case scenario, they find us suspicious because of our appearance, realise we’re tied to two other major incidents, and we’re just on the run again,” Yaoyorozu shrugs. “Not worth it?”

“I mean. Best case scenario,” Kirishima says seriously, “we get pancakes.”

They look at each other.

“So I guess it’s worth it,” he concludes with absolutely none of their input. 

* * *

The worst case scenario changed.

“‘Sup?” Says the overly buff, Johnny Bravado-figured motorcyclist with a fringe made out of Big Bird’s feathers trimmed with a razor blade, seated across from them.

Midoriya doesn’t like him. 

And he jerks at that thought.

He’s never thought that before, not during the first meeting with someone, and not even after he’s gotten to know someone, whether or not they’re somewhat unpleasant company.

“....’Sup.” Mina says, and through her shades, her pretty eyes are narrowed in obvious judgment, and Midoriya can even see a couple snakes slip out from underneath her floppy brimmed hat, staring at the biker who randomly took a seat in front of them.

In a way, Midoriya figures they should thank him.

The waitress most _ definitely _wanted to turn them away, especially at first glance at them and Todoroki’s wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

Then the biker walked in, and all of a sudden, everyone stood up stiffly.

Everyone.

_ Including _ the waitress. She was already standing.

Until the man nodded, and everyone sat back down.

Odd.

Then again, it is the midwest. According to Mina, this the unmarked part of America. The supernatural, the cults, the eldritch, unreported missing persons cases; all out here. 

Perhaps the man is the owner of this quaint diner? Or just the local cryptic. 

“Oh, it’s you,” Bakugou suddenly says, voice scraggly. And Midoriya’s adrenaline spikes so fast his vision nearly blacks out as his legs cramp _ hard _.

Because having years of experience with Bakugou’s existence has honed Midoriya’s artificial self-preservation instinct to detect the _ moment _ he sensed murderous-intent within Kacchan’s voice.

Right now, the potency of homicidal emotion within Bakugou’s voice has blown a gasket somewhere in Midoriya’s bodily functions.

“Ha. Glad you recognise me.”

“It’s because your voice is annoying,” Bakugou leers, and Midoriya stares at him nervously, Bakugou’s veins protruding from his white grip, knuckles flushed red around the cheap silverware.

The last time he’s seen Kacchan so pissed was a week ago, while he was walking out of his apartment and ran into Bakugou, storming out his complex with his step-dad shouting hoarsely back behind him. 

Midoriya didn’t approach him. 

Bakugou looked like he seriously wanted to hit someone, and Midoriya at that stage, while he felt pity for Bakugou’s unleashed anger, was tired of being his verbal punching bag. 

“Learn respect.” The man snorts. “Especially when I got you and your companions out of trouble right now.”

And something’s _ wrong. _

He doesn’t know what-

Kirishima isn’t smiling, just periodically glancing up from the menu set in front of him. 

Kirishima’s always smiling, even in the face of danger.

_ So what are we facing now, then? _

The man then turns his shaded gaze over to Midoriya, and Midoriya doesn’t know how to feel.

There’s something disgusting and primal seizing every muscle in his body, telling him to fight someone.

Him. _ Fight him _.

Midoriya’s mouth twitches at the viciousness of his feelings. The concept of diplomacy, his mom’s disappointed expression, the entire Jurassic Park franchise, and the thought of just having better things to do, quickly tame his riled hormones. 

“Hm. Not easily angered, aren’t you?” The man croaks out a laugh, and Midoriya doesn’t reply. “Not like children can last against me in the end. So, you’re Old Seaweed’s kid, huh? Got kelp hair and everything, too.”

Midoriya suddenly understands Bakugou’s sentiment of holding something pointy.

His eyes dart over so fast his vision rattles, and-

Bakugou’s lax.

He’s slouched in his typical position, and sure, he’s glaring, but he always does that. If anything, he seems more mildly annoyed than-

How come Midoriya's not sensing it? Not sensing the bad energy, the-

Why is _Bakugou _unresponsive to the onslaught of jerk hormones from this man?

Bakugou was so _ angry _ just seconds ago, what drained him?

“Midoriya, wait.” Yaoyorozu begins.

“And you are?” Midoriya spits out his words, physically jerking in an attempt to stifle his discomfort. He doesn’t like violence, doesn’t like fighting, it makes him-

The irrational adrenaline within him extinguishes, leaving him exhausted and running on fumes. _ What was I thinking? _

“Midoriya.” Momo repeats, eyes shifting over.

“Mm. What? Don’t recognise your uncle?” A crooked smile yanks at the man’s mouth, clearly finding amusement in Midoriya’s expressions speedrunning through the seven stages of grief. And it’s a vicious and cruel sneer, one that looks down on others, one that’s so self-confident it lights something old and familiar within Midoriya, as if he understands exactly what that face tells him. And he’s so _ irked _, he wants to wipe it off his face, that self-entitlement-

And Midoriya frowns, because this guy is clearly not Japanese but he looks so _ old and familiar, _but then again, he’s probably an immortal of some kind and-

“Oh my god. You look just like Kacchan,” he gasps.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Bakugou leers, and the man laughs, mirth prying open his mouth into a white and handsome grin.

“No wonder I instinctively was annoyed by you,” Midoriya mumbles, only to freeze, and Ares is laughing even louder, attracting the attention of other customers, while Bakugou is bristling in his seat. 

And Mina, the only one who doesn’t appear that discomforted past suspicious of Ares next to Kacchan, is howling as well, and if Midoriya focuses hard enough on the noise coming from her direction, he can hear an eruption of tinny hisses, as well.

Midoriya awkwardly looks away from him, grateful that Mina’s sitting between them.

“Kid, you ain’t that bad. Certainly just as amusing as Katsuki.”

“Don’t call me by my first name.”

“Son, you pick out good friends.”

Bakugou’s eyes flash, red and bloodthirsty, and Midoriya sees a peek of his earlier anger. “Don’t fucking call me son.”

“So irritating, even after my gift to you,” Ares clucks his tongue, surprisingly less temperamental than his own kin.

Maybe it’s because Bakugou’s a special breed between a bloodthirsty, violent war god for a parent, and Ares.

“Bakugou, don’t pick a fight,” Yaoyorozu warns.

“Don’t fucking tell me what to _ do _, this isn’t your place to step in,” Bakugou lours.

“He’s right,” Ares suddenly says, gesturing to Bakugou, and Yaoyorozu flinches. 

“Shut up, you too. You’re just saying that out of pride, not because we have the same justification,” Bakugou rears to Ares with an ugly sneer that defines specific wrinkles against his mouth. Midoriya can’t help but realise those creases are located in the same place as the ones on Ares’ face. 

“Step down kid,” Ares remarks lousily, but there’s something steely, indescribably vicious in his tone that triggers all the alarms in Midoriya's brain because _ crap _, all his adapted self-preservation instincts react to Ares the same way they do with Bakugou.

“Um….” a gentle voice edges through the thick and suffocating tension of the table.

They look over at the previous waitress who glances between all of them nervously.

They stay a second longer on Bakugou who looks prepared to square up with his own dad in the middle of the table. Midoriya’s suddenly reminded of the video of a person who wanted a waffle while two people duked it out in the background. 

“What?” Ares and Bakugou snap in unison, one with the drawl of someone who expects immediate obedience, the other of an impatient boy who couldn’t care less of others’ reaction.

The lady’s low confidence falters some more. “Um. Your order?”

“Oh!” Kirishima revives his smile, and the lady regains a bit of colour. “Pancakes, please! The one with icing sugar and blueberries, please.”

“Oh. Um. I’ll take French toast, if that’s fine.” Yaoyorozu continues fluidly with a soft and sympathetic grin, probably because right behind her is a Hellenistic art piece depicting the immediate downfall of the modern world, circa 2021.

“I’m fine,” Midoriya says, though, there’s an unintentional sharpness in his voice that’s clearly visible by others given by the waitress’ prolonged gaze, and oh, maybe he still is on edge. 

“Me too,” Bakugou snips, though, he doesn’t seem to care how cutting his voice is.

Todoroki leans forward from behind Midoriya. Then, expressionlessly: “your double-pound, five-cheese, two tier hamburger.” Then, thoughtfully, “hold the onions, please.”

The waitress stares at him, then slowly, scrawls that down.

“You done?” Ares suddenly observes with cruel judgment, and the lady jumps, and Midoriya's pretty sure she’s in the middle of writing, but she still quickly leaves their proximity. “Besides, kiddo,” he points a thick finger, at Bakugou. “I ain’t here for you.” 

“As if I’d ever want you to be,” Bakugou replies slickly.

“I’m here for him,” he clicks his tongue at Midoriya, and Midoriya bites the inside of his cheek.

_ I don’t like him. _

He’s a handsome man, in spite of the multiple scars engraved into his features, lacerated deep enough for Midoriya to believe that they’ve permanently reconstructed his facial structure, but there’s something unsettling about him that overshadows his appearance. “I need a favour.”

Midoriya blinks. “A favour. A god needs a favour?” And he didn’t mean to be taunting, he was simply echoing out of shock, but suddenly, the cocky grin upon his countenance grinds into a rather Kacchan-esque leer, one of crooning mockery and genuine warning. 

“Sure, what do you need?” He asks before Ares can explode his head like a War Head or something.

“Was with my girlfriend in a certain water park. Left behind our stuff. Retrieve it,” he orders.

Midoriya stares. That’s it? “Wait. Why can’t you get it yourself?”

“Midoriya,” Yaoyorozu warns.

And he meant it as a genuine question, not one of judgment.

However, Bakugou is the exact opposite: “yeah, what the fuck. We have an actual problem to handle, and you’re giving us an NPC side quest?”

Ares shifts upright, and Midoriya can’t see his eyes given his wrap-around shades.

Midoriya, for some reason, doesn’t think he wants to see behind them anyways.

“Why not? You’re already here, and I have better things to do.” Ares shrugs.

“So do we.” Bakugou bristles.

“Your quest? With the thunderbolt? You wouldn’t even have that without me.” Ares chuckles, and Midoriya wonders if he thought they’d feel grateful.

“Thanks.” Todoroki breathes, clearly expressing all their discontent.

“Always asking mortals for help like they’re pawns,” Mina hums, stacking up the salt and pepper shakers. 

“Mm. You don’t know it, but I’m rather close with your father, you know.” Ares points at Midoriya, completely ignoring Mina. As if that means anything to him, when Midoriya feels nothing for his dad.

They all pretend as if Mina’s grip hasn't cracked one of the salt shakers on their table, the glass crumpling into itself like paper.

“I was the one who tipped him off that it was probably Corpse Breath who took the bolt.” Ares proclaims. 

“Oh great. Thanks, so you’re the reason why we’re traveling across the country to find someone else’s property.” Todoroki mumbles, and Yaoyorozu is staring at her step-brother, as if questioning if he really is the child of wisdom given all the crap he’s spouting.

As if Midoriya’s doing any better.

“It’s just my war shield and Aphrodite’s scarf. Both infused with godly power. Will be the only time you touch something as immortal as that.” He grins. It’s not a kind smile.

“Why think that? We’ll be touching Zeus’ thunderbolt soon,” Bakugou suddenly says coolly, eyes flashing a pretty red that symbolizes the fallen Trojans, Chicago’s Great Wildfires, Fu-Go’s billowing clouds, and leaking bullet holes. “Why touch second-rate material when we could approach something better?”

Ares' smile falls, and the sudden determined killing intent on his face shocks Midoriya out of his previous and unreasonable confidence. “He didn’t mean it.” Yaoyorozu intervenes.

“We’ll take your quest,” Kirishima speaks up within the conversation for the first time, probably in hopes of diffusing the tension.

“Keep yourself in check. You’re right. Mortals are playthings for the gods, but still human, still within our lineage. With every request, comes a payment.” He leans forward onto the table, and all of them instinctively lean back. “Don’t think with every insult, it won’t cost you, either.” 

Bakugou doesn’t respond. Thank gods.

“So, you’ll take the quest?”

They hesitate. And Midoriya knows they’re waiting for his ‘okay’.

“Why are you asking us to do this, though?” Midoriya asks in what he hopes sounds as passive as possible.

“Like I said, out of convenience,” Ares answers flippantly. “You’re welcome. It’s the most wardogs like you can do that’d impact the world.”

“Such as retrieving stuff you lost?” Todoroki raises an eyebrow. He then pauses, “wait, that’s what Zeus is doing too, I-”

And Midoriya’s having a sudden conclusion that they’re basically metal detectors and that gods lose their most powerful artifacts the same way people always lose their keys.

“Shouto,” Yaoyorozu sighs. “Just stop. Talk it out-” and Midoriya hesitates at her exasperation.

Todoroki doesn’t feel like himself, either. He’s usually rather respectful of the gods, so this feels odd.

“Athena’s offspring, just like her. Arrogant,” Ares smiles, and now Yaoyorozu goes rigid, face stony. “Likes to implement a moral standard onto her aspects of war, that allows her to gaze at what I glorify as inferior.”

Midoriya doesn’t know where this is going.

“As if the reality is that brutal conclusions and bloodshed are simply non-negotiable in war, while what she grants, such as leadership and strategic planning, aren’t necessarily needed for a war to start.” He sneers, and Todoroki falls quiet, his gaze sharp. 

_ Oh my god. _Is Ares complaining about family drama?

“People praise her and hate me,” he pauses, smiling, “as if I don’t dislike that,” _ and he really is Kacchan’s dad _, “but are ignorant in the belief that I bring destruction and death in war, as if those weren’t already definite factors in war with or without my existence.”

He turns to Midoriya, all smiling now, “listen, kid, grab my stuff, and I’ll get a ride for you all the way to L.A.”

They stare at him.

“Seriously?”

“As serious as I am when paying your tab.” And as if on cue, the previous waitress shows up, carrying platters of food, and Midoriya and Kirishima shift aside the other junk on the table to let her place them down. “Hey, sweetheart,” he turns to the young waitress, who ashens, and Midoriya frowns as Yaoyorozu glances away. “Tab.”

At this, the waitress nods, but not before pausing, staring at the broken salt shaker. Still fixated on it, she slowly pulls something out of her apron pocket, and without even looking at the receipt, Ares suddenly takes out a drachma, and places it on the table.

She stares at it, then back at him.

“This. This isn’t-”

“Problem?” Ares remarks calmly, pulling out a _ knife _ , a whole _ knife _ at the table, not the one used to cut steak but used to cut peoples’ tendons, and begins wiping it with his sleeve.

The waitress leaves without another word, tripping over her own feet to get away.

“You can’t just do that,” Midoriya frowns.

“Asshole move,” Bakugou lours.

“‘Sweetheart’ sounds so condescending.” Todoroki mumbles.

“Mannerless.” Mina chides.

Ares laughs. “For sure.” He turns to Mina. “You? A snake? A monster, one directly confronted by _ Athena _ and entangled with Poseidon, siding with their children? Is this audacious or no self-respect? Interesting that you call me mannerless.”

“Thought you’d strike me dead, to be honest,” Mina smiles rather confidently, undeterred by his statements. Midoriya supposes the silver-lining of living for eons with such a tragic history has desensitized her to others’ judgment. 

He cocks a brow. “Why would I? When this get-up is too entertaining?” He gestures at all of them. “It’s not like I have anything against monsters, Titans, or anything else in the first place, after all. Anyways, whaddya say? Grab my shit and I’ll get you a ride.”

“This feels like a trap.” Todorki remarks passively, looking at his burger as if he doesn’t know how to exactly eat it. “I mean. If you grabbed your items yourself, it’d be way faster and easier and independent than relying on us.” 

“Definitely a trap,” Bakugou spits.

“Up to you,” Ares shrugs, insouciant to their response.

They glance at each other. They need a ride. Desperately. They don’t have anymore mortal money, either. 

“Throw in something else,” Mina suddenly says, and they look at her, and Yaoyorozu looks _ pale. _

And fair enough, this is what? The God of War? Or something like that? However, for the god of war, who clearly has a temper there’s-

There’s something drastically comfortable about his presence. Not in a ‘familiar, humane’ way; in a _ comfortable to have enough guts to tangle with him way. _ There’s a weird regal disconnect from him and the rest of his family in Olympus, and Midoriya doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. After all, it’s disturbingly prominent enough of a feeling for all of them to feel comfortable with Mina straight up _ demanding _ for another reward. 

“A deal? Negotiation? That happens after the fighting, you know,” Ares replies, though, he appears contemplative. “I’ll throw in something about Mitsuki, then,” and Bakugou twitches violently, pale skin flushed a disturbing red, and Midoriya can’t blame him.

“The fucking _ nerve _ you have-”

“Hey,” Ares says, and suddenly, Midoriya’s reminded that this is a _ god. _

They are talking to a _ god _, and they’ve been pushing the formalities for so long-

Suddenly, Ares is more than a man with a biker jacket with a motorcycle the size of a small elephant- there’s an overlap of a bronze chest plate and furiously bloodred plume striking out from the back of his mullet, and Midoriya doesn’t want to know what’s behind his _ eyes _-

“_ Don’t push it.” _

Midoriya exhales a shaky breath. “Why would you know anything about his mom?”

“I’m a god, kid. We always know more than what we let on. I’ll let you in on this. She’s not dead.”

They glance at each other.

“We already expected that,” Yaoyorozu admits. 

He smirks. “Smart. Okay. Well, she’s being held as a hostage.”

Figures.

“So whatever is brewing with your little royal cult is like a war, then, huh?” Bakugou scowls. “Dragging random innocent civilians into a war with the big wigs. Just like real life.” 

Ares doesn’t seem even mad at that, and instead, he appears almost excited, licking the top of his teeth. “Yeah. Things’ been too quiet for my liking, anyways.” He then turns back to Midoriya. “So. That’s enough of a deal?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Midoriya suddenly says without consulting. This favour was asked from him, anyways. He’ll just complete it and they can finally get down to the west.

“Don’t back out now,” Ares laughs, and Midoriya has a sudden dreading feeling that maybe, he shouldn’t have responded so rashly. “Kids. Ballsy.” Then, his voice plummets into something heavy and metallic, “recklessly disrespectful. Keep yourselves in check. The stuff I need is in a water park a mile west on Delancy. Take a peek into the Tunnel of Love ride, and you’ll find them.” He glances once more at Midoriya. “Meet me back here once you have those items.”

* * *

“What the fuck was he doing in the Tunnel of Love?” Bakugou snarks.

He wanted to throttle him. Punch him, bang a glass hard against the tabletop until it shatters into smithereens, and take a fragment and carve out the leer Ares wore.

He recognised that sneer too many times in his own reflection.

Then he-

He mentioned his mom like someone he just knew. Not the mom of _ his _ kid sitting right in front of him.

What the _ fuck. _

Mortals are just playthings.

His mom was just a-

“Kirishima’s still out cold.” Yaoyorozu mumbles. “His pancakes are gonna get cold with him, too.” They all apparently just _ knocked out _, none of them recalling how Ares departed. 

Bakugou woke up due to Yaoyorozu forcing him awake, clearly anxious of being the only one conscious. 

Midoriya’s staring blearily at Todoroki, the fucking rich kid, who’s attempting to eat a hamburger taller than his head with normal sized forks and knives.

Dumbass.

“This isn’t good,” Yaoyorozu moans. “He seeked you out. Midoriya, he was probably sizing you up, but _ why _.”

“I mean. Maybe he’s still pissed about when he got trapped in that jar for like. A whole year because of Poseidon’s titan sons.” Todoroki shrugs, and Midoriya seems grey at that. 

_ “What?” _

“Yeah. The thing is, Ares’ stories aren’t really known in the modern history. They’re mostly lost, and it’s true, he and Athena are typically praised and worshipped during war, but any surviving stories really only portray Athena in that position. Maybe it’s because many of them are from Athens, a place blessed by Athena.” Yaoyorozu elaborates.

“Of course they’re biased,” Mina grumbles, and Yaoyorozu’s lips thin at that.

“Though Ares was heavily praised by Spartans, and we know he was highly worshiped despite him being usually looked down upon by the other gods. We just don’t have many stories that include him in the main cats, and if there are any, they usually don’t portray him in the best light.” 

And Ares isn’t his dad. Fuck him. Good, get rekt. 

But that does suck. Imagine doing a shitload of badass shit, and people only know about the weird stuff you get involved in.

“One of them involves Ares being trapped by two of Poseidon’s sons in a jar, because they kidnapped the wrong gods. In other words, they wanted two lady toys and instead they got a boy toy,” Todoroki explains, straight-faced. “When they got him instead, they just decided to lock him in a jar and just forget about him.”

“Wow.” Midoriya blinks. “That’s. That sucks.”

“Mm.” Todoroki nods, sawing off another portion of his burger that’s too long to completely fit on the prongs of his fork.

“Wait, Ares is looked down on by other gods?” Bakugou’s eyebrows pinch together. 

“He’s kind of. His own individual,” Yaoyorozu begins slowly, as if expecting Ares to just show up again. “He’s definitely not one of Zeus’ favourites, and he’s often scolded by other gods in many stories.”

Bakugou snorts. Good. He hears a click, and startled by such a noise in a diner, he whips around, only to make eye contact with the waitress from earlier, who stares, wide-eyed at being caught, with a manager beside them holding a disposable camera.

Bakugou reflexively glowers, and the two flinch.

Shit.

Well, hopefully their new mugshot looks good.

“You know," Yaoyorozu continues, unaware of what took place. "Ares does get along with Hades, though. Which isn’t surprising, I suppose, being an actual outcast,” Yaoyorozu adds. “But like. There are many Olympians who are looked down upon. Such as Hephaestus,” she glances quickly at Kirishima, as if checking to make sure he’s still asleep. “Hera threw him down a mountainside.”

“I. What?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs nonchalantly, taking a portion of Todoroki’s food, also using utensils. Heathenry must be in their blood.

“Why?” Midoriya squeaks.

She pauses, chewing. “Because he was ugly.” Todoroki answers tonelessly.

Bakugou doesn’t know what to say to that. 

"All babies are ugly." He finally barks out incredulously. "Like wrinkly kidney beans."

"Yeah. But he was like. Physically deformed." Yaoyorozu elaborates uncomfortably.

“And a cripple.” Todoroki adds between bites. “Even gods are ableist.” 

And wow, Bakugou _ seriously _ hates it here.

* * *

“What the fuck is this.”

“I can’t believe we’re here at an amusement park, going through a Love Tunnel,” Deku says hollowly.

Todoroki points. “I mean. Let’s go.”

Bakugou crosses his arms. “This is so stupid. I am _ not _ going into a fucking _ Love Tunnel _-”

* * *

Bakugou clutches the seatbelt tightly as Midoriya struggles to control the water flow into the amusement park, as if they aren’t all instinctively screaming while Todoroki and Ponytail clamber over each other as mechanical-ass spiders come fucking _ raining down from the ceiling _ because _ yeah _ that’s just what happens in _ ALL amusement parks- _

“You know, Aphrodite’s scarf kind of smells like grass,” Kirishima informs helpfully as their cart goes flying out the exit of the tunnel, riding on a wave of Midoriya's roaring tsunami.

* * *

“I hate water.” Midoriya whispers. "Oh my god, I _hate hate hate water_."

Bakugou's pretty fucking sure this is the first time he's heard Midoriya use the word 'hate', much less more than once. 

"You're the son of Poseidon, _how?"_ Mina questions curiously.

"When I was a kid, Kacchan tried to drown me in the shallow end of the YMCA pool." Bakugou actually does _not_ remember this, but it sounds so in character that he can't deny the possibility of it.

Mina turns to him, almost looking as if he offended her.

"Yeah. Probably," Bakugou shrugs.

"I hate water." Midoriya groans, shivering as if _he_ isn’t the only one who doesn't look like a drowned fish

Bakugou stares. “Fuck you,” he finally musters a response.

“This was awful,” Todoroki deadpans, from where he’s patting Yaoyorozu’s shoulder, as if she isn’t trying to speedrun through a panic attack.

“How the fuck did that stay on?” Bakugou scowls, pointing at Todoroki’s cowboy hat.

Todoroki looks him in the eye.

Then he points to the tiny hat string knotted underneath his chin.

“Huh, guys, look, they like me!” They look over, and to the side, Deku’s eyes roll up to his head, and he collapses the moment he sees wat Kirishima’s gesturing to.

“What the fuck is that.” Bakugou points.

Kirishima beams from where in Ares’, God of War’s, goddamn holy-ass, all-powerful shield that looks like Ikea shat out a dinner plate meant for a giant New York deep dish pizza, is an entire bundle of glittery spikes.

“Are those the spiders?” Todoroki states, voice taunt and eyes rattling in their sockets.

“Yeah, they’re my friends! I think my dad made them. He’s probably mad that Ares is dating his wife-”

“That’s disgusting.” Mina shudders, and they watch as an entire umbrella of snake heads slither out from her sopping wet brim, rear at the sight of the spiders.

“You _ literally _have a nest of snakes on your head,” Kirishima gripes.

“Wait, why the fuck is his wife cheating on him-” Bakugou begins.

“Zeus is a rapist, you think cheating is that bad?” Mina scoffs.

“You can’t just _ keep _ spiders, they’ll, they _ hate _ kin of Athena,” Yaoyorozu wheezes.

“Don’t worry, they won’t attack because my father made them, I’ll just make sure they don’t come after you. They’re not real spiders, anyways,” Kirishima consoles like he’s a trustworthy and responsible person, as if he _ didn't _just adopt over five-hundred children all at once. 

Bakugou scowls. “It’s not that, that’s the issue. It’s the fact that this is _ bizarre behaviour _ , it’s weird. We’re not having an infestation on our hands, put them back. We are _ not _ bringing a bunch of spiders back with us-”

* * *

Ares stares. “Why are there a bunch of spiders in my shield.”

They all look ahead, as if all of them aren’t wet except for the unconscious boy Bakugou’s dragging behind him on the floor by the ankle. 

To the side, Yaoyorozu is pale from upchucking her undigested lunch, and Todoroki, despite his utterly still figure, has yet to figure out how to stop his eyeballs from shaking into nothing more than a blurry afterimage. 

Kirishima shrugs.

Ares looks back down into his shield.

“These yours?”

“They’re my pets.”

“You mean pests,” Todoroki mutters, only to flinch as the spiders suddenly pause their skittering in the shield, as if sensing his animosity.

Bakugou holds out his hand, as if expecting something, putting a stop to everything else. He’s _ tired _ and he’s _ done _ and he does not think his existence will last if this continues. “Our ride,” he demands.

* * *

“I fucking knew it. This was a trap.”

"Not a trap, we're still on a ride," Yaoyorozu counters.

Bakugou sticks out his tongue in disdain. "It's a fucking trap, because we clearly got ripped off."

Todoroki sighs at this, and a sudden jolt of the weird-ass trailer van sends him knocking hard against the cell bars of one of the animal cages right next to them.

Todoroki stares at the albino white tiger glowering back at him. “Still better than the Love Tunnel ride.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my favourite sentence was : "1/93th fraction of a volume "
> 
> lmaoooo remember when they buried the clothes at the very beginning of the chapter? >:) i kinda have an idea of what to do about it!!! >:)))) foreshadowing!!!!!
> 
> i want to fight the gods but it's like.  
tbh, greek mythologys' gods feel extremely human. like. but a different social circle of elitists.  
like they're literally like keeping up with the kardashians. 
> 
> me: halfway through: holy shit. i'm shitting on like. gods rn. like,,, gods that are deeply engrained in a culture. !!! i'm unsure if people still worship hellenistic Greek gods, but if you do, i'm sorry! I have nothing against them, I just do have a couple issues with the events they're involved with that includes non-con, even though I know the times were different back then, to me it's still inexcusable, tho I do respect them as gods and as very culturally and personally impactful. 
> 
> anyways, i think ancient greek shit rocks and i genuinely don't mean to offend anyone by uh,,, me being pissed at zeus, even though i think if you're offended over the fact that rape is bad it's kind of like.,,, idk man. i'm not going to rearrange my priorities when it comes to that lol. 
> 
> did you know my favourite gods are ares and dionysus, and i love percy jackson and pjO WAS SUCH a cultural reset, but i'll never forgive its influence on dionysus' character. 
> 
> anyways guys, just saying, i think rei's pretty great. do i think her parenting was questionable in the sense that if touya is dabi then it's like,,, "what were u doing...during his entire childhood...like lol wanna....do smth about ur husband real quick," i was also never in a position like hers and i do genuinely pity her especially since everything i make up about her character is like,,, HCs since i don't know shit about how she truly treated touya back then. 
> 
> ^^ wait i meant to mention in that entire passage: i feel like somehow the todoroki family is going to edge its way into the fic. maybe not in the beginning, but i can sense it. like,,, my will to write teh todofam in every fic is very strong


End file.
